Vítezslav Nezval was the most important Czech avant-garde poet of the period between the two world wars. Like fellow writers of that time, he combined literary modernism with revolutionary communist tendencies. Nezval was a prolific writer and his extensive body of work includes poems, plays, prose, and essays. His output was unequal in quality. His best works were his poems of the 1920s and 1930s. After World War II he became the official cultural agent of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia and the quality of his work deteriorated.

Nezval came from the countryside in south Moravia. He was born on 26 May 1900 in Biskoupky, where his father, Bohumil, a former pupil of the well-known composer Leos Janácek, was a primary-school teacher; his mother's name was Emilie. In 1903 the Nezval family moved to the village of Samikovice, where Nezval spent a large part of his childhood...