Alexandra Berková worked a variety of jobs from editor to church cleaner, but by the time her first collection of short stories The Book with the Red Cover appeared in 1986, she had already become a beloved literary figure, and its 60,000 copies sold out immediately. She went on to publish four novellas (Magoria or: A Tale of Great Love; The Trials and Tribulations of the Devoted Scoundrel; Dark Love; A Banal Story), win the prestigious Egon Hostovský literary prize, work in television and radio, and influence a generation of writers as one of the first creative writing instructors at the Czech Literary Academy before her untimely death in 2008.