Jiří Gruša (10 November 1938, in Pardubice – 28 October 2011, in Bad Oeynhausen[1]) was a Czech poet, novelist, translator, diplomat and politician.

[2] Gruša was born in Pardubice, then Czechoslovakia (present-day Czech Republic), and later moved to Prague.

He was arrested in 1974 for "the crime of initiating disorder" after distributing nineteen copies of his first novel, Dotazník (The Questionnaire) and voicing his intention to have it published in Switzerland.

[5] Gruša participated in standardisation of the term "Tschechien" as the official name of the Czech Republic in German language.

Václav Havel wrote (before his own death a month and a half later on 18 December) that Gruša was "one of a few close people whom I deeply respected and who have left this world recently.