Monika Zgustová, a Spanish-Czech writer and translator whose work explores exile — both internal and external — and the everyday impact of authoritarian regimes on personal freedom. Author of eight novels and four works of nonfiction, she has translated into Spanish such iconic authors as Bohumil Hrabal, Jaroslav Hašek, Václav Havel, Jaroslav Seifert, Milan Kundera, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Isaac Babel, Anna Akhmatova, and Marina Tsvetaeva. Zgustová produced the first-ever direct Czech-to-Spanish translation of
The Good Soldier Švejk, for which she received the Ángel Crespo Prize. She also won the Cálamo Prize for
Dressed for a Dance in the Snow (2010) and was a finalist for the National Critics Award for
The Silent Woman (2005). She writes for
El País,
El País Semanal,
La Vanguardia, and
CounterPunch (USA).