Jan Otčenášek

He graduated from business school in 1943, briefly worked in Germany, then was employed at the Avia Motors factory.

After the war, Otčenášek became involved in a pro-communist group known as Předvoj [cs] (Avant-garde), which was illegal at the time.

Later, he joined the Communist Party and studied aesthetics at Charles University, although he had to drop out due to family problems.

Limping Orpheus (Kulhavý Orfeus) is a semiautobiographical description of resistance by a group of young people mobilised by the Germans as munitions workers in the Totaleinsatz.

His most popular work, Romeo, Juliet and Darkness (Romeo, Julie a tma), about a young couple during the Nazi occupation, after the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich was, in 1960, made into a film, directed by Jiří Weiss and starring Ivan Mistrík, Daniela Smutná, and Jiřina Šejbalová.