Dominik Tatarka was one of the most important Slovak fiction writers, both a symbol and an active member of the disent of the 1970’s and 1980’s. He studied Slovak and French at the Philosophical Faculty of the Charles University in Prague and at the Sorbonne in Paris. He took part in the Slovak National Uprising and after the end of WWII, he worked at various magazines and publishing houses. After he clearly expressed his his disagreement with the Sovient invasion, he was banned from the public life and from publishing his work. He had signed the Charter 77. The early novella Panna zázračnica (1944) became one of the books to receive a reedition in 2009, together with the two arguably most-acclaimed books Démon súhlasu (The Demon of Approval, 1st edition in 1963) and Prútené kreslá (Wicker Chairs, 1st edition in 1963).
