Czech poet, critic, translator Ludvik Kundera dies at 90

Aug 17, 2010, 13:05 GMT

Prague - Ludvik Kundera, a Czech poet, playwright, critic and translator, died after a lengthy illness on Tuesday at the age of 90, literary magazine editor Martin Stoehr said.

Kundera's own literary work was influenced by surrealism. He was a renowned translator, mostly from German literature, for which he was praised in the Czech Republic, Germany and Austria.

He translated works of Bertolt Brecht, Georg Trakl, Hans Arp, Heinrich Boell, Johannes Becher, Georg Buechner, Heinrich Heine and Rainer Maria Rilke. He was also an expert on Czech poet Frantisek Halas.

His literary honours included the Czech Republic's 1996 State Prize for Translation, the 2002 Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding and the 2009 Jaroslav Seifert Prize awarded by the Prague-based Charter 77 Foundation.

Ludvik Kundera was born on March 22, 1920 in Brno, the country's second largest city. He was a cousin of Milan Kundera, author of the Unbearable Lightness of Being.

He is survived by his wife Jirina, daughter Alena and son Jan.