Karla Erbová

Biography

Karla Erbová was a Czech poet and writer. After graduating from the Secondary Social and Health School in Pilsen (1950), she worked as a secretary, first at the West Bohemian Paper Mills, then at the West Bohemian Regional National Committee in Pilsen, from where she was dismissed with the onset of normalization. She was subsequently employed at the Communication and Security Distance of the Czechoslovak State Railways, and after moving from Pilsen to Prague, she held the position of shift operator at the Central Cultural House of Railwaymen in Prague (1984–1991). Her first printed poem, entitled "Matčiny ruce", was published in 1947 in Pravda, and since then she has contributed occasionally to a number of newspapers and magazines. She became a member of the literary group Červen 63. In 1966, her first work, "Neklid" (under the then name Karla Papežová), was published. After political vetting, she was placed on the list of undesirable authors and lost the opportunity to publish books for more than twenty years. She was only able to return to official literature after 1989, since then she has published over 30 poetry collections and several prose works. In collaboration with artists, her poems have also been published in the form of bibliophilias. She contributed her texts to a number of anthologies and almanacs. Karla Erbová's poetry has been translated into German, Polish, Sorbian Serbian, French, Bulgarian, Esperanto and Italian.