Anton Hykisch
(1932-2024) Slovakia
Lifetime achievements
Slovak author, playwright, politician and diplomat. He was a literary editor at Czechoslovak Radio in 1962 – 1969, worked at the Central Library of the Slovak Academy of Sciences from 1969 – 1974
and later at the Slovak Visual Arts. After 1968 he was barred from publishing. From 1988 he was an assistant business manager at the publishing house Mladá letá, and was later made director. From 1990 – 1992 he was a member of parliament and in 1993 – 1997 he was Slovak Ambassador to Canada. He is a member of the Slovak Writers’ Society and the Slovak PEN Centre. In January 1998 the President of Slovakia presented him with a Pribina Cross 1st Class. Hykisch started to publish in 1956. His writings are characterised by social criticism which appeared already in his first novel, Sen vchádza do stanice (The Dream Pulls In at the Station), published in 1961. In his work, Anton Hykisch refers to social ills and the moral emptiness of society, corruption and other vices that create disillusionment and disappointment with life.
