Miloš Urban

Miloš Urban (born 4 October 1967 in Sokolov, Czechoslovakia ) is a Czech novelist and horror writer, known as the "dark knight of Czech literature". He is best known for his 1999 novel Sedmikostelí, a Gothic crime horror set in Prague, which was translated into 11 languages. He is also a translator, and has translated works by authors including Isaac Bashevis Singer and Julian Barnes into Czech. As well as the Czech Republic, Urban's books have found considerable commercial success in Spanish-speaking countries. , a Gothic historical thriller set in New Town, Prague, about a man named Kvetoslav Svach, and how he is linked to murders in seven cathedrals of the city. It has been acclaimed as a masterpiece of modern gothic literature; Urban was praised as "the dark knight of Czech literature" and the book has been translated into 11 languages (English, German, French, Dutch, Hungarian, Russian, Spanish, Slovene, Croatian, Polish, and Bulgarian). and Santini's Language, which drew comparisons to Dan Brown. In 2007 Urban released Fields and Palisades: The Myth of the Princess and the Farmer, a version of the story of Přemysl the Ploughman and Libuše, the legendary origin story of the Czech people, as part of the Canongate Myth Series. This was followed by 2008's Dead Girls, an anthology of gothic mysteries written between 2002 and 2006. A review in Czech daily Právo said that "Urban writes wonderful gothic mystery stories – and even Jakub Arbes might envy him this collection". Lord Mord, released the same year, is set amid the slum clearance of Prague in the late 19th century, in which the murder of prostitutes is employed as an allegory for the harm caused to the city.

In 2011 Urban released Boletus arcanus, a satire about drug dependency and human need that references the Czech pastime of mushroom picking. Praga Picolla, released the following year, is a more traditional historical novel set in the time of the First Czechoslovak Republic. This was followed in 2014 by She Came From The Sea, a detective mystery about a girl who emerges from the sea on the British coast one day without explanation. In 2015, Urban released Urbo Kune, a sci-fi tinged novel written as a response to a request from Vienna architect, Jan Tabor, for European artists and writers to join a project dedicated to a united Europe.

Personal life As of 2009, Urban lived in the Bohnice district of Prague. He works as a writer, translator, and editor in a publishing house.

Works The Final Mark on the Manuscripts (; Argo, 1998) The Seven Churches (; Argo, 1998) Hastrman (Argo, 2001) - also known as The Water-Goblin Memoirs of an MP (; Argo, 2002) The Shadow of the Cathedral (; Argo, 2003) Santini's Language (; Argo, 2005) Fields and Palisades: The Myth of the Princess and the Farmer (; Argo, 2007) Dead Girls (; Argo, 2008) - a short story anthology Lord Mord (Argo, 2008) Boletus arcanus (Argo, 2011) Praga picolla (Argo, 2012) She Came from the Sea (; Argo, 2014) Urbo Kune (Argo, 2015)