Miroslav Holub

Who was Miroslav Holub?

Miroslav Holub was a Czech poet and immunologist.

Miroslav Holub's work was heavily influenced by his experiences as an Immunologist, writing many poems using his scientific knowledge to poetic effect. His work is almost always unrhymed, so lends itself easily to translation. It has been translated into more than 30 languages and is especially popular in the English-speaking world. Although one of the most internationally well-known Czech poets, his reputation continues to languish at home.

Holub was born in Plzeň. His first book in Czech was Denní služba, which abandoned the somewhat Stalinist bent of poems earlier in the decade.

In English, he was first published in the Observer in 1962, and five years later a Selected Poems appeared in the Penguin Modern European Poets imprint, with an introduction by Al Alvarez and translations by Ian Milner and George Theiner. Holub's work was lauded by many, including Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney, and his influence is visible in Hughes' collection Crow.

In addition to poetry, Holub wrote many short essays on various aspects of science, particularly biology and medicine and life.