Kristina Roy (1860–1936)

Kristína Royová was one of five children of a Lutheran pastor in Slovakia. She attended a secondary school in Bratislava for a year, and learned to speak German. She and her sister Maria wote songs in Slovak, and also translated English and German hymn-books. She began her literary career by reading her own fairy tales aloud to the family. She became a prominent and prolific novelist and poet as well as a Christian activist and leader of charitable causes. Although her works were banned in Czechoslovakia during the Communist era, today she is one of the most frequently-translated Slovak authors. Some literary critics have called her the "Slovak Kierkegaard."