Zuzana Nováková

* 1943

  • "I wanted to keep my name Renčová, but they forbade me to publish. And when my husband was back at the regular interview with those gentlemen, he asked why I wasn't allowed to publish. They said that I had a reactionary name and that it was impossible for such a person to publish. So he asked them what if I published under my civil name Nováková. So they said, 'Okay, that's fine.' But even so, I had limited possibilities, I couldn't publish a book every year, even though I wrote a lot at that time. So at least I was allowed to. Mostly fairy tales and books for young people, for girls, but I didn't write under my own name anyway, but under different pseudonyms. But I could publish poems and fairy tales, and then I published a lot - they didn't check that - in story collections, so I had a lot there. I even made enough money that I didn't have to go to work. It really got paid for work in those days, you have to admit. Unlike today."

  • "My mum had to go two days in advance to even get us there for that morning hour, so we got there early in the morning and waited outside that gate in the rain until they let us in. There was this - sort of a basement room, this long black corridor, and there were chairs, and there was glass and bars and wires in front of us, and they were bringing the prisoners in on the other side. There were maybe six or seven prisoners at a time, I don't know how many. There was a guard behind each of them, and of course we weren't allowed to shake hands, we couldn't. And I was in such a trance for most of that time, I was crying, I couldn't even speak. And so they were talking there [with my mother] and my father was like a shadow, very pale, but he was always smiling kindly. Then they took him away again and he was in those rags..."

  • "When my father was arrested, it was worse, I was in second class, I think. My best friends started avoiding me from afar and stopped talking to me, they were forbidden by their parents because we were the criminal element. So it wasn't pretty. Or maybe when I would come to my friend's flat, they would slam the door in my face and tell me not to go there anymore. I was a little kid, I was experiencing these things, I didn't really know what was going on. Then the biggest shock for me was after a year when we found out from the newspaper that my dad was sentenced to 24 years [25 years] and when I was in class my classmates brought me the newspaper. I couldn't believe it at all, I was in complete shock, so I was there crying through the all lessons. So the teacher was very good to me. But I couldn't imagine seeing my dad when I was grown up, maybe married. Well, it was crazy. It was a pretty bad experience."

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    Brno, 24.11.2023

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    duration: 01:54:53
    media recorded in project Příběhy regionu - JMK REG ED
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I found out about my dad’s conviction in the newspaper at school

Zuzana Nováková, second half of the 1980s
Zuzana Nováková, second half of the 1980s
photo: Witness´s archive

Zuzana Nováková, née Renčová, was born on 22 February 1943 in Prague. Her father, Václav Renč, was a prominent writer, playwright and translator, a representative of the Catholic current in Czech literature. In May 1951 he was arrested and a year later, in the trial of the so-called Green International, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison. After Renč’s conviction, his wife and children were officially evicted from their flat in Brno, where they were living at the time, to Klobouky u Brna. Here Zuzana Renčová completed primary school and soon moved with her mother to Karlovy Vary so that she could enter the grammar school, which she was not admitted to in her place of residence. After several moves, she eventually completed her secondary education by studying in Prague in the evenings. Her father, Václav Renč, was released from prison in 1962 and died in 1973. In 1965 she married publishing editor Jaroslav Novák and settled permanently in Brno. She made her living as a writer and illustrator of children’s books. She and her husband raised two daughters. In 2023 Zuzana Nováková was living in Brno.