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Zdena Tominová

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Zdena Tominová, 2017

Zdena Tominová (7 February 1941 – 24 May 2020)[1] was a Czech novelist and a dissident in the communist era of Czechoslovakia.

Biography

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She was born Zdena Holubová in 1941 in Prague. She studied philosophy and sociology at university. She started her literary career in 1959, writing surrealist poetry. In 1962, she married the philosopher Julius Tomin. She published essays and short stories in the sixties. After the fall of Alexander Dubček, her writings were banned for life by the communist regime.[citation needed]

She was one of the spokespersons for Charter 77, which resulted in intense official harassment. She wrote for the samizdat publication Padlock. In 1980, she and her husband travelled to Oxford. They were declared "enemies of the state" by the Czechoslovak government and their citizenship was revoked. They eventually settled in Britain.[citation needed]

Writing as Zdena Tomin, Tominová published two novels, Stalin's Shoe (1986) and The Coast of Bohemia (1987). Both were well received by reviewers. She also wrote the screenplay for an autobiographical drama called Enemies of the State, which was first broadcast by Granada Television in 1981. The role of Zdena was played by Zoë Wanamaker. The drama was also broadcast in the US in 1988.[2]

Zdena Tominová lived in the UK. She had two sons. One of them, the budding writer Lukáš Tomin (1963-1995) moved back to Prague in 1991 and died there at the Divoká Šárka nature reserve in 1995.[3] Her other son Marek is a journalist and translator, also based in Prague.[4] Her niece is Michaela Marksová, former minister of Labour and Social Affairs of the Czech Republic.[5]

References

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  1. ^ "Zemřela mluvčí Charty 77 Zdena Tominová, disidentce a spisovatelce bylo 79 let | Lidé". Lidovky.cz. May 24, 2020. Retrieved May 24, 2020.
  2. ^ "Enemies of the State - ZOE WANAMAKER OFFICIAL WEBSITE - www.zoewanamaker.com". www.zoewanamaker.com. Retrieved May 24, 2020.
  3. ^ "Lukas Tomin 1963-1995 - The Prague Post". Feb 25, 2014. Archived from the original on 2014-02-25. Retrieved May 24, 2020.
  4. ^ "Marek Tomin - growing up in a dissident family during the communist regime". Radio Prague International. Retrieved May 24, 2020.
  5. ^ ČSSD, (c) 2015-2020. "M.Marksová-Tominová pro magazín MF Dnes: Chci, aby lidé měli rovné šance". www.cssd.cz. Retrieved May 24, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)