Jan Křesadlo

Who was Jan Křesadlo?

Jan Křesadlo was the primary pseudonym used by Václav Jaroslav Karel Pinkava, a Czech psychologist who was also a prizewinning novelist and poet.

An anti-communist, Pinkava emigrated to Britain with his wife and four children following the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet-led armies of the Warsaw pact. He worked as a clinical psychologist until his early retirement in 1982, when he turned to full-time writing. His first novel "Mrchopěvci" was published by Josef Škvorecký's emigre publishing house 68 Publishers, and earned the 1984 Egon Hostovský prize.

He chose his pseudonym partly because it contains the uniquely Czech sound ř; in addition, he was fond of creating more pseudonyms such as Jake Rolands, J. K. Klement, Juraj Hron, Ferdinand Lučovický z Lučovic a na Suchým dole, Kamil Troud, and more.

Pinkava was also active in choral music, composing a Glagolitic Mass. As well, he worked in mathematical logic, discovering the many-valued logic algebra which bears his name.