Jiří Padevět

Writer, bookseller and publisher, Padevět worked as a book trader since 1988 until he became director of Academia publishing house in 2007. He has authored a dozen books, including Cesty s Karlem Hynkem Máchou: Průvodce (Travel With Karel Hynek Mácha, 2010), Průvodce protektorátní Prahou: místa – události – lidé (A Guide Through the Protectorate Prague, 2013). This book was awarded Magnesia Litera, the Czech Republic’s top literature prize, in 2014. According to reviews, the “book may reveal to us the meaning of certain places, their history, whose actors are already dead while their activities mostly long forgotten, yet in the mysterious habitats of Prague they still exist secretly, along with everything that happened before and after…”