Prague Vampire

Vlastimil Vondruška

He studied history and ethnography at Charles University in Prague, worked at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, and then at the National Museum in Prague. Around 50 scientific studies and his first short stories date from this period. He was a mountaineer for over thirty years. After the 1989 revolution, he founded a glassworks where he produced replicas of historical glass. During that time, he returned to writing fiction, and since 2007 he has been a freelance writer. To date, he has published roughly 70 historical novels and detective stories, several books for children, and, together with his wife, 20 popular science publications on history. According to National Library statistics, he has been the most-read Czech author for many years, having sold almost two million printed books and over 100,000 audiobooks, with several titles published abroad. He is also the author of the story for the film 'In the Name of the King' and the author of radio and theatre plays. He has received numerous literary awards (e.g., the IBBY Award, the Learned Society of the Czech Republic award, an honorary award from Mensa, and readers' choice awards from the MOBA publishing house). His novel 'The Hussite Epic' was named Bestseller of the Year in 2015. He is also involved in journalism, for which he received the Krameriova Cena awarded by the Association of Independent Media. In 2017, he received a state decoration for literature from President Miloš Zeman.