Josef Hiršal was a Czech

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

 author, poet and novelist.

Hiršal was widely regarded as one of the most important Czech authors of experimental poetry; after early surrealistic writings, he made his literary debut with a collection of poems. Later on, he joined the group of artists around Jiří Kolář

Jirí Kolár

Jiří Kolář was a Czech poet, writer, painter and translator. His work was divided between literary and visual art.- Life :Kolář came from a poor family of a baker and a seamstress...

, a friend of whom he remained for his entire life and with whom he published children's books in the 1950s after having been forbidden any kind of work during the Soviet

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 occupation. He later on signed the Charta 77.

In the 1960s, Hiršal he started writing experimental poetry with partner Bohumila Grögerová; the couple also co-authored several books. Furthermore, Josef Hiršal built a reputation as a translator of foreign works into the Czech language

Czech language

Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...

, translating the works of, among others, Christian Morgenstern

Christian Morgenstern

Christian Otto Josef Wolfgang Morgenstern was a German author and poet from Munich. Morgenstern married Margareta Gosebruch von Liechtenstern on March 7, 1910...

, Ernst Jandl

Ernst Jandl

Ernst Jandl was an Austrian writer, poet, and translator.- Poetry :Influenced by Dada he started to write experimental poetry, first published in the journal "Neue Wege" in 1952....

, Eugène Ionesco

Eugène Ionesco

Eugène Ionesco was a Romanian and French playwright and dramatist, and one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd...

, Wolfgang Hildesheimer

Wolfgang Hildesheimer

Wolfgang Hildesheimer was a German author who incorporated the Theatre of the Absurd. He originally trained as an artist, before turning to writing.-Biography:...

, Hans Magnus Enzensberger

Hans Magnus Enzensberger

Hans Magnus Enzensberger , is a German author, poet, translator, and editor. He has also written under the pseudonym Andreas Thalmayr. He lives in Munich.- Life :...

, Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...

, Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...

, Heinrich Heine

Heinrich Heine

Christian Johann Heinrich Heine was one of the most significant German poets of the 19th century. He was also a journalist, essayist, and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of Lieder by composers such as Robert Schumann...

, H. C. Artmann

H. C. Artmann

Hans Carl Artmann , also known as Ib Hansen, was an Austria-born poet and writer, most popular for his early poems written in Viennese , which however never after were to be the focus of his oeuvre.-Life and work:Artmann was born in Vienna as the son of shoe...

, Helmut Heissenbüttel, Fernando Pessoa

Fernando Pessoa

Fernando Pessoa, born Fernando António Nogueira de Seabra Pessoa , was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic and translator described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and one of the greatest poets in the Portuguese language.-Early years in Durban:On 13 July...

 and Torquato Tasso

Torquato Tasso

Torquato Tasso was an Italian poet of the 16th century, best known for his poem La Gerusalemme liberata , in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade, during the siege of Jerusalem...

; in 1989, he received the Grand Austrian State Prize

Grand Austrian State Prize

The Grand Austrian State Prize is a decoration given annually by Austria to an artist for exceptional work. The recipient must be an Austrian citizen with a permanent residence in Austria....

 for his translations.

Josef Hiršal died in September 2003 following an accident with the Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

tram in May in which he was seriously injured.