...and other seeds fell into good soil and brought forth fruit
Josef Mlejnek was born on 3 December 1946 in Žatec. He graduated in philosophy from the Brno university. In the 1970s he worked at the district culture centre, district cinema, and district library in Havlíčkův Brod. In 1981 he signed Charter 77, left the district library, and earned a living doing manual labour until the Velvet Revolution. After moving to Prague in 1983 he edited the samizdat magazines Pražská komunikace (Prague Communication) and Střední Evropa (Central Europe). In 1990 to 1996 he devoted himself completely to publishing Střední Evropa; he was then employed as a culture journalist at the nation-wide daily Lidové noviny. In 1998 he switched to the daily Mladá fronta DNES. H spent three years (2003-2006) as a freelancer, before going into early retirement. He now lives alternately in Prague and in Lípa; he writes critiques, translations, and poems for Revue Politika (Political Review), Perspektivy (Perspectives) - a supplement of Katolický týdeník (Catholic Weekly) - Divadelní noviny (The Theatre Reporter), the cultural bi-weekly A2, and other periodicals.
