Veronika Opatřilová

Veronika Opatřilová (1986– ) was influenced by the books of Astrid Lindgren and Tove Jansson, as well as Jack Kerouac and the Beats. Her studies include Hungarian language and literature at Charles University in Prague and Hispanic studies at Masaryk University in Brno. She lived in Sweden for many years, working as a barista, receptionist, and tour guide in Stockholm, and studying the language at the University of Gothenburg, where she began translating Swedish literature, especially Nordic crime novels, into Czech.

In 2021, she published the literary novella Ostrov žije, and the following year she released Počkej na moře (Wait for the Sea.) The publication of Počkej na moře in 2022 rendered her an instant celebrity in the Czech Republic, where she now lives in the countryside near Pardubice.

Wait for the Sea received excellent reviews and sold out quickly, with a second printing announced in 2024 at the Prague book festival,  a significant accomplishment within the Czech-language market, coming only three months after a bill to legalize same-sex marriage was rejected by the Czech Parliament.