Alex Zucker
Alex Zucker is an award-winning translator of Czech literature. He also works in editing and communications.
In December 2017, the Authors Guild published findings from the first-ever survey of working conditions for literary translators in the United States, a project Alex initiated with the Authors Guild. From 2014 to 2016, Alex served as cochair of the PEN America Translation Committee.
In May 2018, Alex’s newest translation, Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, a novella by J. R. Pick, was published under the Modern Czech Classics imprint by Karolinum Press.
In April 2018, The Puppet Master: The Complete Jiří Trnka, a series of 18 short and 6 feature-length animated films, screened at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, in New York City, with 11 works newly subtitled by Alex.
In November 2017, Alex’s translation of the Petra Hůlová novel Three Plastic Rooms was published by Jantar.
In May 2017, Alex’s translation of Angel Station, a novel by Jáchym Topol, was published by Dalkey Archive Press.
Also in May, Alex’s translation of the Jana Šrámková children’s story “Dagesh and Mappiq Are Friends” appeared in Quest: Stories of Journeys From Around Europe, published by Alma Junior.
As of 1/1/18, Alex’s rates for literary translation range from $0.18 to $0.30 per word, depending on difficulty, time frame, and other factors (including whether or not royalties are paid). His standard editing rate begins at $60 per hour, again depending on difficulty, time frame, and other factors.
Works

Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
Compassion, levity, and laughter can be found in the darkest of places—and in the smallest of creatures. Set in 1943 Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, J. R. Pick’s Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals tells the story of Tony, a thirteen-year-old boy who is deported from Prague to the infamous Terezín ghetto for Jews—the horrific, overcrowded concentration camp where one in four prisoners died of starvation or disease, and a way station on the way to Auschwitz. But it is not the atrocities Tony experiences that make his tale remarkable. It is his ability to find comedy in the incomprehensible.
Tony suffers from tuberculosis, and, lying in his hospital bed one day, he decides to set up an animal welfare organization. Even though no animals are permitted in the camp, he is determined to find one creature he can care for and protect—and his determination is contagious. A group of older boys, including Tony’s best friend, Ernie, aid him in his quest. Soon they’re joined by Tony’s mother—and her coterie of boyfriends. Eventually, they find Tony his pet: a mouse, which he names and carefully guards in a box hidden beneath his bed. But in the fall of 1944, the transports to Auschwitz begin.
As moving as it is irreverent, Pick’s novella draws on the two years he spent imprisoned in Terezín in his late teens. With cutting black humor, he shines a light on both the absurdities and injustices of the Nazi-run Jewish ghetto, using his literary artistry to portray in stunning shorthand an experience of the Holocaust that pure histories could never convey.
Angel Station, by Jáchym Topol
Three Plastic Rooms, by Petra Hulová
The Attempt, by Magdaléna Platzová
Love Letter in Cuneiform, by Tomáš Zmeškal
Midway Upon the Journey of Our Life, by Josef Jedlička
Innocence; or, Murder on Steep Street, by Heda Margolius Kovály
Reconstructing Atrocity Prevention (editor)
The Devil’s Workshop, by Jáchym Topol
The Opportune Moment, 1855, by Patrik Ouředník
Case Closed, by Patrik Ouředník
All This Belongs to Me, by Petra Hůlová
City Sister Silver, by Jáchym Topol
More Than One Life, by Miloslava Holubová
A Trip to the Train Station, by Jáchym Topol
Awards and Recognition
- Magdaléna Platzová’s The Attempt longlisted for 2018 International DUBLIN Literary Award
- 2017 English PEN Translates Award
- 2013 English PEN Award for Writing in Translation
- 2013 Typographical Translation Award
- 2012 National Endowment for the Arts Literary Fellowship
- 2010 ALTA National Translation Award
Press and Media Mentions
- “J. R. Pick and a Brilliant Novel of the Holocaust – At Last Available in English: Part 2” (Radio Prague)
- “Alex Zucker: I Don’t Want to Translate Books, I Want to Translate Authors” (Interview with Radio Prague)
- “Alex Zucker: I Don’t Want to Translate Books, I Want to Translate Authors” (Interview with Radio Prague)
- “J. R. Pick and a Brilliant Novel of the Holocaust – At Last Available in English: Part 1” (Radio Prague)
- “Laughing in the Dark: On J. R. Pick’s Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals” (Los Angeles Review of Books)
- “Sex, plugs and folderol” (TLS on Petra Hůlová’s Three Plastic Rooms)
- Petra Hůlová’s Three Plastic Rooms in “World Literature Today’s 75 Notable Translations of 2017”
- “Pleasure, Pity, Pain: On Petra Hůlová’s Three Plastic Rooms” (Los Angeles Review of Books)
- Full Stop review of Jáchym Topol’s Angel Station
- TLS on Jáchym Topol’s Angel Station
- Kirkus on Jáchym Topol’s Angel Station
- Magdaléna Platzová’s The Attempt in “10 Books about Occupy Wall Street You Need to Read” at Culture Trip
- TLS on Tomáš Zmeškal’s Love Letter in Cuneiform
- TLS on Josef Jedlička’s Midway Upon the Journey of Our Life
- Magdaléna Platzová’s The Attempt in “75 Notable Translations of 2016” at World Literature Today
- Wall Street Journal on Heda Margolius Kovály’s Innocence
- NPR on Heda Margolius Kovály’s Innocence
- Interview, “Translating Fact into Fiction”
- Interview, “The thrilling, tricky art of translation”
- Interview, “Translators, Rates, Money, and Unions”
- Interview, “Alex Zucker and His Authors”