“The language of Markéta Pilátová is enthralling by its homogeneous briefness and sharpness”
— Mladá fronta Dnes
Markéta Pilátová (1973) graduated in Romance Studies and History at the Faculty of Arts of Palacký University in Olomouc, where she was an assistant professor for six years. For two years she worked as a lecturer of Czech at the Department of Slavonic Studies in Granada, Spain, and then went for 12 years to Argentina and Brazil, where she taught Czech to the offspring of Czech compatriots and worked as a journalist for various Czech magazines en newspapers.
During her stay in Latin America, she started writing and immediately broke through as a writer with her first novel Žluté oči vedou domů (Yellow Eyes Will Lead You Home). Here she combined and confronted elements of European and Latin American culture. This would become her trademark for several books that followed, adding an extra dimension to her work .
She always does thorough research before writing, and for the novel S Baťou v džungli (With Bata in the Jungle), for instance, she was able to draw on personal archives of descendants, which inspired her writing. She shows similar meticulousness in her children’s books about famous people such as the Bata brothers, of the renowned shoe company, and the writer Arnost Lustig.
Pilátová is successful as a writer of both literary books and children’s books. Her work has appeared in more than 10 languages. Her novels have been nominated more than once for the Magnesia Litera Award Prize and for the Josef Škvorecký Award . For her children’s books she received the Golden Ribbon Award , the SUK Children’s Book Award and the Be Proud Award.
Novels
Yellow Eyes Will Lead You Home (Žluté oči vedou domů)
Torst Publishers, Prague (2007)
My Most Beloved Book (Má nejmilejší kniha)
Torst Publishers, Prague (2009)
Tsunami Blues (Tsunami Blues)
Torst Publishers, Prague (2014)
The Hero from Madrid (Hrdina od Madridu)
Pikador Books, České Budějovice (2016)
With Bata in the Jungle (S Baťou v džungli)
Torst Publishers, Prague (2017)
Diviner (Senzibel)
Torst Publishers, Prague (2020)
Nests (Hnízda)
Odeon, Prague (2025)