[3] Aged five, in 1980, her parents took her and her elder brother on a 'holiday' to the Dalmatian coast of the then Yugoslavia, but diverted to Zagreb, obtained four-day tourist visas to Austria with passports valid only for travel to Yugoslavia, and, after some time in Austria, moved to Canada when Jana was six.
[14] Reviewers considered her a "notably resourceful writer of autobiography",[14] with an "understated sensibility"[15] Themes include the Canadian landscape, "Ideas of in-betweenness",[14] childhood and folklore.
[18] As of 2019, she lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., with her husband, performing artist, Colin Gee, and their son, Nicholas, born in 2016.
[5][19] Prikryl's older brother died in an automobile accident in 1995 at the age of 27, and her first book, The After Party is dedicated to him.
[9] Prikryl has received a fellowship from Yaddo,[20] and a Creative Writing Grant from the Canada Council for the Arts.