Petra Hà ¯lová (born 12 July 1979) is a Czech writer.
Hà ¯lová was born in Prague. She holds a degree in culturology from Charles University in Prague. She lived in Mongolia for one year as an exchange student after having studied the language and culture for several years and having originally had her interest sparked by "a chance encounter with the film Urga by acclaimed director Nikita Mikhalkov."
Hà ¯lová rapidly rose to popularity in 2002 with the publication of her début novel PamÃÂà ¥ mojàbabiÃÂce, which became one of the most widely read Czech books of the decade. The novel is told from the point of view of five female narrators from three generations of the same Mongolian family. She chose to set the novel in Mongolia to avoid the necessity of writing about "artificial phenomena" such as career and media, by which she felt Mongolia had been less "polluted" than Europe; this allowed her to focus on writing about the basic feelings of her characters. The novel won a Magnesia Litera Prize as Discovery of the Year, and was voted Book of the Year by the Czech daily Lidové noviny.
Hà ¯lová's second novel, Pà Âes matný sklo, is set in Prague. The book, divided into three sections, offers a portrait of a relationship between a son (Ondà Âej) and his mother (unnamed). The first and third sections are narrated by the son; the second, by the mother.
Her stay as a Fulbright scholar in the Department of Anthropology at CUNY in 2004âÂÂ05 inspired her third novel, Cirkus Les Mémoires, set in New York.
Hà ¯lová's fourth novel, UmÃÂlohmotný tà ÂÃÂpokoj, narrated by a 30-year-old Prague call girl with a high-class clientele, won the Jià ÂàOrten Prize, awarded each year to the author of a work of Czech prose or poetry. The author must be 30 or under at the time the work is finished, and the award carries a prize of 50,000 Kà(roughly $3,000). A stage adaptation by Viktorie ÃÂermáková opened in Prague in 2007. ÃÂermáková chose to attribute the text to five call girls and one narrator.
In 2008, her fifth novel, Stanice Tajga â about a Danish businessman named Hablund who disappears in Siberia after World War II and a man named Erske who, 60 years later, attempts to track him downâÂÂreceived the second annual Josef à  kvorecký Award, which carries with it a prize of 250,000 Kà(roughly $14,500).
In October 2009, Northwestern University Press published the first translation of her work in English, All This Belongs to Me, a translation by Alex Zucker of her début, PamÃÂà ¥ mojàbabiÃÂce. Zucker's translation of her 2018 dystopian novel StruÃÂnàdÃÂjiny HnutÃÂ, was published by World Editions in 2021 as The Movement.
(Translations of titles for informational purposes only.)
Hà ¯lová is married and has two children.