Author. Jozef Cíger-Hronský gained fame in the 20th century as a prolific Slovak writer. Born one of seven children of a carpenter, he attended local schools before the Hungarian Teacher Training Institute, graduating in 1904 . He taught at several schools. During World War I, he served as a soldier in an infantry regiment with operations on the Italian front. He started publishing his writings in the early 1920s. After the war, he returned to teaching. He was the editor of the children's magazine Slniečko or the "Little Sun" from 1928 to 1945, and started a printing company. In 1933 he became a secretary of the Matica slovenská, the Slavic cultural institution in the city of Martin. In 1940 he became the director of Matica slovenská, but leaving in 1945. He became an active member of the Slovak People's Party, a far-right political party with a strong Roman Catholic ideology, supporting the Slovak Republic. After World War II, he went into exile, first to Austria and then Italy. In 1948 he migrated to Argentina, settling in Lujan. At first, he found difficulty making an income, but worked in a textile factory. He continued to write and being published in magazines. In 1956, he became the chairman of the Slovak National Council abroad. He was appointed honorary chairman of the Association of Slovak Writers and Artists Abroad. In 1959 he founded the Foreign Matic slovenska, in an attempt to keep his homeland culture alive. The Slovak Republic was abolished after the USSR occupation in 1945 and its territory was reintegrated into the recreated Third Czechoslovak Republic, becoming a Communist country. His works were banned in communist Czechoslovakia. On January 1, 1993, Czechoslovakia Republic split into two countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. At this point, his books became very popular in his country, yet remained scarcely known in the English-speaking population. The 1933 novel "Jozef Mak" is considered his masterpiece, with elements of both the expressionist and symbolist movements; it is the story of the "ordinary" human beings in a Slovak village. In 1972 this novel was translated to English. He was originally buried in Argentina and in 1993, his remains were repatriated to Martin to be buried in the National Cemetery. Besides a host of novels and collections of short stories, he published 19 children's books and three dramas. Several of his publications have been translated to English, German and French. He married Anna Valeria Ruzinakova and the couple had a son. His pink granite grave marker is a very modern piece. He shares the marker with Štefan Krčméry, a Slovak poet.