Michal Černík

MICHAL ČERNÍK was born in Čelákovice in 1943. Although he has spent over two decades in Prague, he doesn’t feel himself to be a Prahan. Having graduated in Czech and History from the Faculty of Education of Charles University in Brandýs nad Labem, he was a teacher for four years. Subsequently he has worked in Prague in various positions in publishing and magazine editing, with the exception of the years 1988 and 1989, when he was chair of the Czech Writers’ Union. He has published about fifty books, most notably foldout picture books with text for children (e.g. rhymes, poetry, fairy tales, stories in verse, educational books); he is author of ten volumes of poetry for adults and seven books of journalism as well as editor of many books for children and a number of anthologies of Czech and world poetry in print and audio form. His poetry and books for children have been translated into Armenian, Bulgarian, English, Estonian, Finnish, Galician, German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese. Michal Černík’s poetry and rhymes appear in readers for primary-school pupils.