Mináč's prose and essay work for almost half a century provided an impulse for the development of Slovak society, literature and culture. He entered literature immediately after the war having undergone a difficult human trial during the Slovak National Uprisingand in the Naziconcentration camps. His first books were characterised by documentary quality but also by realistic depiction of war. From
a totally subjective criticism Mináč's heroes gradually mature towards the need for liberation activity, which is embodied not only in the Uprising but also in building
a new society (
Yesterday and Tomorrow, Breakout, Blue Waves). The author becomes a pioneer of socialist ideas, but at the same time he shows the important role critical elements play in contemporary society. The culmination of Mináč's prose work is the trilogy
Generation, in which the author through the individual fate of the Slovak intelligentsia captures the last months of the Slovak pro-Fascist state and the Slovak National Uprising until February 1948 when the Communists gained power.
The 1960's in Mináč's work mark a strengthening of ironical and satirical elements. The books
You Are Never Alone, The Producer of Happiness, and
Notes bring profound criticism of socialist bureaucracy and hypocrisy showing the alienation of idea and reality. The novel
The Producer of Happiness is a caricature of social ills, which the author makes visible with both traditional and fantasy elements. In the late sixties Mináč abandoned
belle-lettre forms and concentrated on essays. The peak of his work from that period is the book
Blowing on the Embers, where he put forward criticisms of the official conception of national history.
Mináč's sharp pen of a publicist was not quiet during and after the political collapse of 1989. There were quite many intellectuals who couldn't agree with his attitudes but even they showed deep respect to this writer and thinker who most of all liked disputes and non-conform criticism of a social
status quo.
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