Author, Political Activist. He was a 20th-century Slovak author, who became famous for this 1956 political satirical piece, "The Demon of Consent," which condemned Joseph Stalin's reign of terror. Born the only son of eight children of a family in the Czechoslovak Republic, his born place became part of Slovakia after January 1, 1993. After gradationing from local schools, he studied the Slovak and French languages at the University of Charles in Prague from 1934 to 1938 and from the Sorbonne in Paris from 1938 to 1939. Returning from France, he taught French in high schools. During World War II, he became political by joining the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and participating in the Slovak National Uprising, which was all illegal. Following the end of the war, he worked at various newspapers and the author of propagandist books and movie scripts celebrating the role of the Communist party, yet became disillusioned with Communism by the 1950s. For his 1956 masterpiece, he was persecuted. By 1971, he was no longer allowed to work as a writer and his works were removed from public libraries. Tatarka had to make a living by working as a lumberjack and rubbish collector and was under constant surveillance by the secret service. Despite this, he became part of the dissident activity across the Eastern Soviet Bloc. In 1977 he was among a handful of Slovak signatories of Chapter 77, which was demanding a better government. Signing the document was considered a political crime. He died the spring before the toppled of the Communist regime by the Velvet Revolution in November of 1989. During his career, he received a host of honors including Jaroslav Seifert Prize in 1986, Order of Tomas Garrigue Masaryk 1st class posthumously in 1990 and Order of Ludovit Stur 1st class posthumously in 1996, and a postage stamp with his image in 2013. A coveted annual literary prize was started in his name since 1995. A minor planet, the 286162, was named in his honor.