Writer and philosopher Michal Ajvaz was born in Prague in 1949. His father was a Crimean Karaite and his mother a Viennese Czech. After studying at the Faculty of Philosophy of Charles University, he held various working-class jobs before becoming an editor at the magazine Literární Noviny in the 1990s. Since 2003, he has been working at the Centre for Theoretical Studies, a joint department of Charles University and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. His published works include a book of poems (Murder at the Intercontinental Hotel, 1989), a book of short stories (The Return of the Comodo Dragon, 1991), several novels (e.g., The Other City, 1993; The Golden Age, 2001; Journey to the South, 2008), philosophical studies (e.g. The Primeval Forest of Light, 2003; Journey to the Sources of Meaning, 2012; Dynamic Logos, 2023), and books of essays (e.g., The Story of Signs and the Emptiness, 2006). Together with Ivan Havel, he has published three books of philosophical correspondence. He translated Ernst Jünger's novella On the Marble Cliffs from German. He is the winner of the Jaroslav Seifert Prize, the State Prize for Literature, the Magnesia Litera Prize, and the Prix Utopiales Européen. His books have been translated into 24 languages.