Франтішек Фрьоліх

František Fröhlich was a prominent Czech translator from Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and English. His work fundamentally influenced the staging of Scandinavian drama in Czech theatres over the recent decades. After studying English and Danish at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, he worked as an editor for Czechoslovak Radio. From the early 1990s, he pursued translation as a freelance career. The core of his work consisted of modern translations of the dramatic plays of Henrik Ibsen (e.g., Peer Gynt, A Doll's House, The Wild Duck, Hedda Gabler), as well as works by August Strindberg. A significant portion of his bibliography is dedicated to prose; he translated several works by the Danish writer Karen Blixen and the popular detective novels by the Swedish duo Sjöwall and Wahlöö. Fröhlich's contribution is also indispensable in literature for children and young adults; he is responsible for the Czech versions of titles such as The Talking Parcel by Gerald Durrell, The Young Puffin's Guide to Being Bad (Prevítem snadno a rychle) by Simon Brett, and a modern edition of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales. For his extensive body of work, he received the State Award for Translation in 2006, as well as the Josef Jungmann Prize and the Award of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.