Jan Neruda (1834 – 1891)

Jan Nepomuk Neruda was born in 1834 in the magical area of Prague’s Mala Strana (Lesser Town) son to a local grocer who owned a shop in the area. Jan Neruda was a Czech writer, journalist and poet and is famous to this day for Povídky malostranské (Tales of the Little Side), a book from 1877 that features satirical stories about the Czech Bourgeois of the time and clear descriptions of the romantic Mala Strana setting. One of the top representatives of Czech Realism, Neruda studied philosophy and Philology and also worked as a teacher for a spell until he became a free-lance writer and journalist in 1860. After Neruda’s death the picturesque street where he grew up was named after him. Jan Neruda is buried in the Vysehrad National Cemetery.