“Happyends” by Jaroslava Blažková (Czechoslovakia-Сanada-Slovakia)

Abstract

Jaroslava Blažková (1933–2017) belonged to the generation of Slovak writers who came to literature in the late 1950s and early 1960s, to the generation of rebels of the “sixties” who gathered around the magazine Mladá Tvorba. The first works that made the writer’s name famous were the short story “Nylonový mesiac” (1961) and the collection of short stories “Jahniatko a grandi” (1964). In 1968, Blazhkova and her family were forced to leave the country and remained in Canada for the rest of her life. In the 1970s–1980s. she was engaged in journalistic activities and collaborated with Czech emigrant writers J. Škvorecki and Z. Salivarová. After the “gentle revolution of 1989” she got the opportunity to come to her homeland, appear in print, and publish books. In Slovakia, her collections “...ako z gratulačnej karty” (1997), “Svadba v Káne Galilejskej” (2001) were published, which included stories from the 1960s, and then written in the early 2000s. a novel in letters “Happyendy” (2005), based on the writer’s own dramatic experience of caring for her seriously ill husband, on her memories and reflections, imbued with irony and optimism. In the 2000s. In Slovakia, Blažková’s books for children and youth were published and became successful.