Ivan Diviš

While at high school in Prague during World War II he was arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned in Pečkárna and Pankrác.

From 1942, he worked in a bookstore, and at the end of the war he was employed at publisher V. Petr.

After passing his maturita he studied philosophy and aesthetics at Charles University (1945–1949).

In the early 1950s, he worked as a corrector at the Communist Rudé právo newspaper.

In the aftermath of the Prague Spring, he emigrated to West Germany in 1969 and worked as a librarian for Radio Free Europe.