Veronika Tuckerova

Veronika Tuckerová

Senior Preceptor in Slavic Languages and Literatures
(Czech language program)

My teaching and research interests include Czech language and literature, Franz Kafka and other German writers from the Czech lands, Czechoslovak dissent and underground literature and culture, samizdat, visual art, and translation theory and practice. 

My book, Reading Kafka in Prague. On Translation, Samizdat, Censorship, Export, and Dissent (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025) examines the Czech reception of Franz Kafka during the Communist era, when Kafka's books were mostly banned and circulated in samizdat typescripts. A preview of Reading Kafka in Prague can be accessed here. A Czech version of the book was published in Prague as Bedekr Kafka in 2024.

I edited and co-translated a bilingual edition of the Czech exile poet Ivan Blatný, The Drug of Art, published by Ugly Duckling Presse. My articles and reviews were published in journals such as The New German Critique, Journal of World Literature, brücken, and Modernism/modernity. I am a contributor to the Prague-based journal Revolver Revue and the monthly Roš chodeš.

I collaborated on two major exhibitions, The Story of Charter 77, in the National Gallery in Prague in 2017, and The Steadfast, From Franz Kafka to the Velvet Revolution, at Prague's Municipal House in 2019.

I grew up in Prague, pursued my PhD in New York, and taught at UT Austin before joining Harvard University's Slavic department in 2013. In addition to teaching all levels of Czech, Readings in Czech Literature, and Czech tutorials, I enjoy taking students to Prague for Harvard's Summer Abroad Program. I serve as the executive director of the International Association of Teachers of Czech and the editor of Czech Language News, and I am the founder of Czech Café that promotes Czech culture in the Boston area.

Veronika Tuckerova's Bedekr Kafka (Revolver Revue, 2024) received honorable mention for the Otokar Fischer Prize, awarded to outstanding books in Czech-German studies, on May 18, 2026, in Prague's Goethe Institute. 

Education:

Columbia University, Ph.D. in German and Comparative Literature, 2012. 

The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, M. Phil. in Comparative Literature, 2005.            

Charles University, Prague, Master of Arts in Education, 1994.