Pavol Rankov: It Happened on September the First (or whenever)

A prominent representative of the middle generation of Slovakian prose-writers was born in 1964 in Bratislava. He lectures philosophy on Komensky University where he also graduated. He published his first piece in 1995 and was immediately awarded the Ivan Krask Prize for this effort. Rankov’s prose have been published in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Austria, Romania, Sweden and Italy. Among others books the fiction It Happened on September the First (or whenever) was published into Hungarian. The story of this book takes place between the years 1938 and 1968 in Czechoslovakia: three friends compete for the favour of one lady while turbulent changes of the 20th century unfold behind their back. Rankov was awarded the European Union Prize for Literature for this book in 2009.