User:NPS1986/Michaela Swinkels-Nováková

Michaela Swinkels-Nováková

Drs. Michaela Swinkels-Nováková was born on 23 April 1945 in Prague in Czecho-Slovakia, now the Czech Republic.

In 1968 she graduated at the Charles University in Prague, her branch of study was Czech and English. During her studies she worked as an interpreter (and guide) in the CEDOK travel agency and for various exhibitions held in Prague. She wrote articles for Czech magazines, such as Signál, Universita Karlova, Dikobraz and Mladý svět. In 1966 she received a prize for her novel „Jediný vínový soumrak“ in a contest on literature (published in the beginning of 1969). In 1968 she emigrated to the Netherlands, where she married her husband, but a negative consequence was that the contract for her following novel „Smyk v posledním kole“ was cancelled by the publisher. In the Netherlands she became a lecturer of English at the University of Professional Education where she worked for 33 years. In the meantime she wrote short articles for some Dutch periodicals such as "Vrouw en haar huis", Eindhovens Dagblad... Her novel „Polepená oblaka“ (ISBN 0887810977) was published by "68 Publishers" (a publishing house formed in Toronto (Canada) by Czech expatriate Josef Škvorecký and his wife Zdena Salivarová) under a pseudonym Nathalie Princová, so was her story “Večeře v Jaltě“ by the same publisher in the collection of 'female' novels called „Doba páření“. She participated with her articles in Czech periodicals such as „Západ“ (Canada), „Reportér“ and „Polygon“ (Switzerland) under a pseudonym Nathalie Malinová, and after 1989, under her own name in Polygon (Switzerland), „Český Dialog“, „revue Prostor“ and „Nový Polygon“ (published by Primus).

She has been working as an interpreter and translator (sworn) in Dutch, English and Czech at various events, such as conferences, the Czech Embassy in The Hague, for special guests (in 1990 for Mrs. Olga Havlová) and twinnings, where she has been one of the organisers (Domažlice-Budel, Rakovník-Weert, Strakonice-Ysselstein, Vedrovice-Achel...). She took part in Czech symposia and conferences, e.g. in Náchod (On the anniversary of Josef Škvorecký) and in Prague (Labyrint ženského literárního světa). She has been one of the authors for ČRO 7 Radio Prague for the programme Čeština, of which you can find the articles here, and for a few years, she has been the editor-in-chief of „Nový Polygon“, the Czech foreign magazine (České zahraniční časopis) which is internationally issued, which was terminated in early 2020.