Like Czech history, Mark Slouka’s life has been accentuated by the number 8.  In 1948, his parents escaped from Communist Czechoslovakia. Ten years later, in 1958, he was born into a “Czech speaking ghetto in Queens, NY.”  The family first returned to Prague on a visit in 1968, and in 2018, Mark and his family made a permanent move to Prague.

NYU Prague has benefitted from this move – Mark has launched a creative writing workshop open to all students and staff.  “I teach how writers read – beginning writers need to learn to read their own work critically,” explains Mark. “And we talk about the use of silence- what is left out of an opening is what brings a reader in.”   

Mark Slouka has published eight books and is currently working on the ninth.  His work treads the line between fiction and nonfiction, often delving into aspects of his family’s Czech history.  His latest book, Nobody’s Son: A Memoir is about his parents’ escape from Czechoslovakia and how their lives were affected by memories of betrayal.   His novel Visible Worlds – based on his mother’s complicated past- was a finalist for the British Book Awards.  His short stories have been selected for the anthologies of Best American Short Stories and the Pen/O’Henry Prize Stories. In June, a Czech translation of  Nobody’s Son will be released.

“One of the reasons I am here is because my books have always been bicultural – they walk the line between languages, culture, histories, between the present and the weight of the past.  

Having spent my life in the States it made sense to connect to that other half of me.  It’s always seeped into my life. I am fascinated by the weight of history on the present.  What city is better for that than Prague?”

Mark’s first language was Czech, and he has had a “lifelong affair with the language, the culture, with palacinky [crepes] and svickova [creamy beef stew].”  Despite the fact that he was born and lived in New York, he remembers hearing English for the first time when he was five and was surprised that the speakers didn’t understand Czech.   

Until now, seven months was the longest time he had spent in Prague – he was here on on sabbatical in 2003 – but he felt like it was inevitable that he would come back.  When he retired from the University of Chicago in 2008, he decided to try to focus more on writing. Moving to Prague seemed to make sense. “I love getting away from the car culture – it’s so isolating.  In Prague, people sit in pubs and talk to one another.”

NYU Prague will host a reading of his work in the beginning of the fall semester.