Josef Pánek: The Need To Know

 Born in 1966 in Prague. He graduated from Faculty of Science, Charles University. Currently, he works as a molecular geneticist at Institute of Microbiology of the Czech Academy of Sciences. He lived abroad (Australia, Norway) over a long period. He is the author of the collection of short stories Kopáč opálů [The Digger of Opals] (2013) and the novella Láska v době globálních klimatických změn [Love in the Era of Global Climatic Changes] (2017); both were awarded the Magnesia Litera prize for prose. His answer to the question ‘What made you write?’ is: “The need to know people, myself, the globalizing world, human narrow-mindedness, and universal prejudice.”