Jana Hejkrlíková grew up in western Bohemia and, as an adult, graduated from the Evangelical Academy of Law and Social Work in Prague. Then she briefly studied Romani studies at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University. For several years, she worked as a social worker and Romani advisor in Příbram, and was active as a Romani activist, particularly regarding Romani children's education. As a member of the Czech Government Council for Romani Community Affairs at the turn of the millennium, she advocated the creation of social scholarships for Romani pupils and students. She runs artistic courses for adults teaching painting and singing, has worked as a teacher at SOS Sluníčko, lectures at educational seminars, and prepares methodological recommendations for educational and psychological counselling centres and schools regarding work with Romani children. Together with her husband, she founded the Příbramský huntík country-folk festival, which she continues to organize even after his death.
She began writing in 1995 at the instigation of Milena Hübschmannová and has for instance written for the Roma-studies journal Romano džaniben, as well as Respekt weekly, Plav and Literární noviny. In 2006, she won the Milena Hübschmannová Literary Prize, awarded by the ROMEA organization to authors writing in Romani, for her short story “Bachtalo ďives” / “Lucky Day”. Her prose was included in Čalo voďi / Sytá duše (Museum of Romani Culture 2007), an anthology of works by Romani prose writers living in the Czech Republic, in the short story collection Moji milí /My Dears (e-book, Kher, 2013). Her novella Má inkoustová léta / My Ink Years was published in the anthology of contemporary Romani women's prose Slunce zapadá už ráno / The Sun Sets Already in the Morning (Václav Havel Library 2014), and was also released in the German collection Kurzgeschichten und Gedigte aus Ungarn, Tschechien und der Slowakei (Short Stories and Poems from Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, Roma Trial e. V. 2015) and translated into English and published in the USA. In 2018, her short story “Když s námi komunikují neživé bytosti” / “When the Dead Communicate with Us” was included in an anthology of Romani authors' stories about the spirits of the dead, O mulo! (Look, A Ghost! Stories About the Ghosts of the Dead, Kher, 2018) and her short story “Savi goďi chudňom la phura datar” / “My Grandmother's Wisdom” was published as part of the anthology Všude samá krása (Nothing But Beauty Everywhere, Kher, 2021).
Photo: Lukáš Houdek
