Ota Filip

Ota Filip (born 9 May 1930 in Slezská Ostrava, in the present-day Czech Republic), is a Czech novelist and journalist. He has written in both German and Czech. His novels have also been translated into French, Italian, Spanish and Polish. During the communist era government of Czechoslovakia his works were banned or censored by the authorities, and after the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact Armed Forces in 1968, he was sentenced and imprisoned for his dissident activities between 1969-1971. This has been cited as the reason that he moved to Germany in 1974. Ota Filip's work is cited as focusing on the themes of the migrant or dislocated individual by critics such as Dorothea Uhle. In 1976, he published a fairy tale called, Brief des Drachentöters (English version as "A Letter for the Dragon Slayer"), which is part of the children's book Update on Rumpelstiltskin and other Fairy Tales by 43 Authors, which is compiled by Hans-Joachim Gelberg, illustrated by Willi Glasauer, and published by Beltz & Gelberg. He has been awarded the The Adelbert von Chamisso-Preis for German writing by a non-native German speaker. On October 28, 2012, on the occasion of the anniversary of the founding of the Czech Republic, the President of the Czech Republic awarded Filip a National Medal of Merit in Fine Arts.