James Naughton (1950-2014) was born in Edinburgh, and studied Czech and Russian at Cambridge, where he received his PhD. He taught Czech and Slovak language and literature for many years at Oxford University, and was a Fellow of St Edmund Hall. His published translations include Miroslav Holub’s The Jingle Bell Principle (Bloodaxe Books, 1992), Bohumil Hrabal’s Cutting it Short, The Little Town where Time stood still, and Total Fears: Letters to Dubenka, and Six Czech Poets: Znyněk Hejda, Petr Borkovec, Petr Halmay, Pavel Kolmačka, Kateřina Rudčenková, Viola Fischerovà (co-translator, ed. Alexandra Büchler, Arc Publications, 2008). He also published several textbooks, including Czech: An Essential Grammar, Colloquial Czech and Colloquial Slovak, and co-edited The Travellers' Literary Companion to Eastern and Central Europe.
