Jana Reichová

Jana Reichová is a promoter of Czech culture in Australia. She has been active in journalism, literature, and culture in general. She discovered, published, and popularised a number of exile authors in Sydney. After November 1989, she facilitated in re-establishing international contacts with the university in Olomouc.

In 1968 she emigrated with her family and settled in Sydney, where she became one of the main figures in the ex-patriots' cultural life as a member of the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences. She was active in the Czechoslovak cultural society Boomerang in the 1970s. She also closely collaborated with the Škvoreckýs, who founded their exile publishing house 68 Publishers in Toronto. In 1976, she started broadcasting in Czech at the SBS 2EA radio station, and became the most prominent voice of Czech exile broadcasting. In the 1990s, she and her husband founded the Czech-Australian Artspectrum Association, the main promoter of Czech culture in Australia and Oceania, for whom they published an arts and culture journal, Spectrum (1996-2002).

Awards:

• Palacký University Honorary Doctorate - October 2, 2013