Frantisek Halas is one of the most important representatives of Czech lyric poetry of the twentieth century. He was a poet, a translator, an essayist concentrating on literature and art, and a journalist writing on cultural matters. His name became identified with the intensive and genuine search for a poetic form that would encapsulate the tragic and absurd situation of the individual in modern, socially stratified society. In times of difficulty he did not hesitate to speak out in defense of democratic and humanist principles in the name of the entire Czech nation.

Halas was born on 3 October 1901 in Brno, Moravia, to a working-class family of poor textile workers. His father, Frantisek Halas Sr. (1880-1960), came from a large family of weavers. During Austro-Hungarian rule and also during the first Czechoslovak republic, as an official representative of the workers, he was prosecuted and sent to prison. He was...