Irena Brežná: A profesional exile

 – Slovakia

Irena Brežná: A Professional Exile

Irena Brežná (* 1950) spent her childhood in Trenčín, in her grandparents’ house, where her parents took refuge after being forcibly evicted from their apartment in Bratislava (as part of the illegal Action B). Her teenage years were marked by repressions against her parents: her father, a lawyer and owner of a law firm, was banned from practicing his profession in communist Czechoslovakia and worked as a construction worker, and her mother spent a year in prison for attempting to escape to Sweden. Brežná graduated from high school in Bratislava and, after the occupation of the republic by the Warsaw Pact armies in August 1968, emigrated with her parents to Switzerland. She studied Slavonic studies, philosophy and psychology at the University of Basel.

She worked as a psychologist, translator and interpreter from Russian into German. She was working for Amnesty International for twelve years. She implemented and supported various humanitarian and women’s projects, especially in Guinea and Chechnya. Since 1990, she has been returning to Slovakia regularly, and in the early 1990s she introduced herself to the public and literary audience mainly on the pages of the Aspekt magazine. She writes in German. Since 1980, she has been a regular contributor to several Swiss and German newspapers and magazines (Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Berliner Freitag, WDR 3 radio and others). She lives permanently in Basel, Switzerland.