Karol Fajth

After completing his university studies at the University of St. Petersburg (1980), he worked as a reporter for leading Slovak magazines (Slovensko, Život, Pravda na nedeľu). From 1987 to 1989, together with Michal Áč, he produced a series of interviews for Slovakia's highest-circulation weekly with leading scientists and social activists on the need for systemic changes in the country. After 1989, he worked as a columnist for the daily newspaper Verejnosť. From 1991 to 1992, he served as spokesperson for the Ministry of International Relations of the Slovak Republic and participated in several diplomatic conferences (OSCE Meeting on Human Rights, Moscow 1991, OSCE International Conference on the Conversion of Military Production in the Former Soviet Bloc Countries, Bratislava 1992). In May 1992, he was one of the organizers of a photo project with the German agency Bilderberg titled “Unknown Slovakia” (photo exhibition in October 1992, publication in 1994). He contributed to the work of the first foundations in the Slovak Republic and founded the Slovak Philharmonic's Res Philharmonica Foundation (1994). From 1995 to 1996, he served as director of the Slovak Philharmonic. After his involuntary departure from the Slovak Philharmonic, he independently devoted himself to several cultural projects in collaboration with the British Council (concerts by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in Slovakia). Since 2000, he has been working in the field of foreign-language literature sales in Slovakia. In 1998, as part of a grant from the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, he prepared a study on political developments in Central Europe (Central Europe: In Search of Its Own Destiny).

In 2015, he published the “urban fantasy” novel Last Chance, followed in 2016 by its sequel, Lost Chapters. His next novel, Defeat (2017), was published by Tatran as the first installment of a planned spy trilogy. Here, the author drew on his own experiences from his studies in Leningrad and his time in Washington, D.C., offering a perspective from both sides on the period marking the beginning of the collapse of the socialist system in the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union, as well as the onset of of perestroika. He approached this complex topic as a spy novel, depicting the intricate fates of the main characters—the Russian Volodya Volchkov and the Slovak Gulliver.

The final installment of the trilogy, titled Resurrection, is scheduled for release in late 2019 by Tatran Publishing.