Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1945-2010 (Creation)
Level of description
Manuscript Collection
Extent and medium
131 boxes
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Josef Škvorecký was born in 1924 in Nachod, Bohemia, Czechoslovakia. He received his PhD in philosophy from Charles University in Prague in 1951. His earliest works, including The Cowards (1958) and the End of the Nylon Age (1956) were banned by communist censors. He published novels, short stories and film scripts between 1963 and 1968, during a shift to more liberal political climate. After the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, Škvorecký and his wife, Zdena Salivarová emigrated to Canada in 1969. Together with his wife, he ran 68 Publishers, which published, in both Czech and English translations, books that we banned in Communist Czechoslovakia. By the fall of the Soviet Union, 68 published had published over 220 works. Skvorecky published many books, including novels, poetry, non-fiction, as well as for film and television, among them The Engineer of Human Souls (1984), which received the Governor General’s Award for fiction. Škvorecký was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982, and was awarded the Order of the White Lion in the Czech Republic in 1990. Josef Škvorecký died in 2012.
Archival history
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Papers were donated to the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library in 1973, 1990, 2005, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011.
Content and structure area
Scope and content
Collection includes holograph and typescript drafts of Josef Škvorecký’s works (novels, travelogues, literary essays, film scripts), as well as correspondence, juvenilia, and other material relating to his life and work.
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling
Accruals
System of arrangement
Conditions of access and use area
Conditions governing access
Material may be requested in person at the Fisher Library Reference Desk, or in advance using our online stack retrieval request form: https://fisher.library.utoronto.ca/stack-retrieval-request
Please note: Some restrictions on access.
Conditions governing reproduction
Language of material
- Czech
Script of material
Language and script notes
Physical characteristics and technical requirements
Finding aids
Allied materials area
Existence and location of originals
Existence and location of copies
Related units of description
Notes area
Alternative identifier(s)
Access points
Subject access points
Place access points
Name access points
Genre access points
Description control area
Description identifier
Institution identifier
Rules and/or conventions used
Dates of creation revision deletion
Language(s)
- Czech