The post-occupation literature which appeared in Slovakia was only partly conformist with the normalisation regime. Politicians and cultural ideologists had a wide range of attitudes towards individual authors - from recognition (and decoration) through to ostracism. Many writers were only tolerated by the regime, e.g. the novelist Alfonz Bednár or the poet Milan Rúfus.
           Alfonz Bednár (1914 - 1989) attempted to extricate Slovak prose from under the iron blanket of the ideologisation of reality as far back as 1954, in his novel Sklený vrch (The Glass Mountain), and took another step in this direction in the book of novellas Hodiny a minúty (Hours and Minutes, 1956). His saga about the collectivisation of a Slovak village could only be published in its entirety after the fall of communism in November 1989 (Role I. - IV., [The Fields,1992]). During normalisation, his satirical trilogy Za hrsť drobných (A Handful of Small Change, 1970, 1974, 1981) contained the author's judgment on the socialist present as an emotionally arid world of stereotypes, in which people are for the most part ruled by ulterior, egotistical motives. Bednár's other works of prose from this period have a similar ring.
           Through his poems, Milan Rúfus (1928) introduced ethical pathos into Slovak poetry and renewed its spiritual mission. His debut Až dozrieme (When We Shall Have Matured, 1956) was also a moral appeal to society and art to stop lying in the name of higher ideological principles. Even in the changed conditions, Milan Rúfus preserved his original philosophy, anchored in humanism and the defence of man against the callousness of the world, and poetry based on biblical symbolism and religious language (Stôl chudobných [The Table of the Poor, 1972], Prísny chlieb [Severe Bread, 1987], etc.). Both of these tendencies became more pronounced in Rúfus' work after 1989 (Neskorý autoportrét [A Late Self-Portrait, 1996], Čítanie z údelu [Reading from Fate, 1992], Žalmy o nevinnej [Psalms on the Innocent, 1997], and others).
           Beginning with the late 70s, the harsh normalisation policy "softened" and several authors who had been banned from publishing were able to return to literature, e.g. the dramatist Peter Karvaš and prose writers Ladislav Ťažký and Anton Hykisch.
           In his dramatic production during the 60s, Peter Karvaš (1920 - 1999) opposed the Stalinist deformations of the regime, at the same time decrying man's lack of resolution in opposing these deformations (Antigona a tí druhí, [Antigona and The Others, 1961], Jazva [The Scar, 1963], Veľká parochňa [The Big Wig, 1964], Experiment Damokles [The Damocles Experiment, 1966], Absolútny zákaz [Total Prohibition, 1969]). The conditions of his second entry into literature allowed him to develop only the prosaic part of his creation, e.g. the novel whose action takes place during World War II, called Noc v mojom meste (The Night in my Town, 1979); he was only able to return to the Slovak stage as a dramatist after the fall of the communist regime.
           In his novel Evanjelium čatára Matúša (The Gospel According to Sergeant Matthew, 1979), Ladislav Ťažký (1924) returned to the theme of his successful war novel Amenmária (1964) and concluded the life story of its hero Matúš Zraz, a youth from a communist family, whom the regime of the wartime Slovak state forced to fight against the communist Soviet Union, for which he suffers pangs of conscience.
           Anton Hykisch (1932) did not dare to set his work in the present, although he had once been one of the most prominent figures of the so-called "1956 Generation", but found a safe haven in history (Čas majstrov [The Time of the Masters, 1977], Milujte kráľovnú [Adore the Queen, 1984]).
           Gradually literature found the strength to renew itself from its internal resources. The official cultural policy failed in its attempts to introduce a new, historically open variant of socialist realism, nor was it successful in inducing authors to focus on contemporary and relevant themes in the spirit of normalisation catchphrases. The literary tendencies disrupted by the occupation revived - at least in part. The young authors who had once been grouped around the magazine Mladá tvorba (Young Creation, 1956 - 1970) matured as artists and men. In the late 70s, the prose writers Vincent Šikula, Peter Jaroš, Ladislav Ballek, and the younger Ivan Habaj came with extensive novelist compositions.
           Vincent Šikula (1936 - 2001) entered Slovak literature with books of stories, in which he kept looking for the qualities of humanity on the reverse side of socialist reality. Instead of active heroes building bright tomorrows, his narratives were peopled by children, the elderly, creatures from the fringes of society and mentally handicapped loners (S Rozárkou [With Rozárka, 1966]). In his novels from the 70s - Majstri (The Masters, 1976), Muškát (Geranium, 1977), Vilma (1978) - he chose to place his characters in the tide of history (the second world war, the uprising) and explore their humanity in borderline and ideologically contradictory situations.
           After some flirting with modern philosophical and artistic movements (existentialism, the French nouveau roman), which was characteristic for his generation, Peter Jaroš (1940) returned to the dawn of the 20th century in his novels like Tisícročná včela (Millennial Bee, 1979), Nemé ucho, hluché oko (Dumb Ear, Deaf Eye, 1984), and described several generations of builders' families trying to convince the reader that Slovaks have always devoted themselves to building (and not destruction) and that history is the history of work, not military aggression.
           Ladislav Ballek (1941) and Ivan Habaj (1943) extended the literary map of Slovakia to new regions. Ballek's novels Pomocník (Helper, 1977) as well as Agáty (The Acacias, 1981) and Habaj's trilogy Kolonisti I. - III. (Colonists, 1980 - 1986), describe the Slovak south, a territory where two ethnic groups, the Slovaks and the Hungarians, come into contact, and draw a picture of their co-existence, its tensions and friendly relations, developing with the passage of time. The philosophical basis of Ballek's novels is the stress laid on the multi-ethnicity and multiculturalism characteristic of central Europe.
           All of the above prose writers polemicised in a more or less concealed way with the official view of history as interpreted by Marxist historians and politicians. Vincent Šikula questioned the importance and sense of the Slovak National Uprising (1944), which split Slovak society in two, and attempted to find common points and unite the divided reality. He succeeded because he observed events through the folk element (ideologically ambiguous) and put the principles of humanism to the forefront. Anton Baláž (1943) also examined the uprising and other historical milestones in his novels Sen pivníc (Dream of Cellars, 1977) and Tiene minulosti (Shadows of the Past, 1978). It needs to be underlined that these historicising tendencies were partly a result of the federalisation of the Czecho-Slovak Republic in 1968. Although it was only a formal act, because under the totalitarian system the federation did not function and the occupation continued, this fact alone reinforced national awareness in Slovakia, and an element of renewed national confidence is also incorporated in these novels.
           The poetry of the poets grouped in the 60s around the magazine Mladá tvorba (Young Creation, 1956 - 1970) developed along diverging lines. In his production, Milan Rúfus remained true to the supreme moral mission of poetry. Miroslav Válek (1927 - 1991) was one of the greatest poetic talents and the most prominent figure of the sixties. His collections Dotyky (Touches, 1959), Príťažlivosť (Attraction, 1961), Nepokoj (Unrest, 1963), Milovanie v husej koži (Love-Making with the Goose Flesh, 1965) represented a definite revival of poetry and each of them was a literary event. After 1968 he became minister of culture and defended the normalisation policy, although with great reservations where literary values were concerned; this was also the tenor of his poem Slovo (Word, 1976), endorsing the contemporary situation with reservations.
           The group of so-called concretists (or the Trnava group), which entered Slovak poetry with a programmatic manifesto on the pages of Mladá tvorba (Ján Stacho, Ľubomír Feldek, Ján Ondruš, Jozef Mihalkovič, Ján Šimonovič), renounced ideological engagement through poetry. It refused to join issue with the "cult of personality" and Stalinist deformations (like M. Rúfus and M. Válek) and simply ignored them. Instead, it looked to modern and avant-garde poetry of the 20s, whose traditions it consciously tried to continue. Rather than ideological messages, it emphasised "modern sensibility". It interpreted the so-called truth in art as a "truthful metaphor". According to the concretists, a poem should excite emotions above all else. Perhaps the best way to achieve this is by drawing directly from reality and extracting poetic images from it without any ideological "intermediary". In later decades, individual authors abandoned some of the poetic principles embodied in the original manifesto, strengthened their bonds with society, addressed human and social problems, but they did not give up their subjective conviction that the poem is above all an exciting aesthetic fact. The personal fortunes of this group's protagonists were dramatic: Ján Ondruš ceased publishing and remained secluded in a psychiatric institution; Ján Stacho was bedridden after a serious accident and had to start anew in poetry from the beginning; Ľubomír Feldek succumbed to the attractions of prose and drama; only Jozef Mihalkovič and Ján Šimonovič remained true to poetry, but Ján Šimonovič adapted to normalisation quite early on.
           The more radical group of poets Osamelí bežci (solitary runners - Ivan Štrpka, Peter Repka, Ivan Laučík) was crushed by the normalisation regime right at the outset. Peter Repka emigrated, Ivan Laučík was silenced for two decades, Ivan Štrpka devoted himself to song lyrics.