Gabriela Preissová, née Gabriela Sekerová, sometimes used pen name

Pen name

A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...

 Matylda Dumontová (March 23, 1862 in Kutná Hora

Kutná Hora

Kutná Hora is a city in Bohemia, now the Czech Republic in the Central Bohemian Region.-History:The town began in 1142 with the settlement of the first Cistercian Monastery in Bohemia, Kloster Sedlitz, brought from the Imperial immediate Cistercian Waldsassen Abbey...

 - March 27, 1946 in Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

), was a Czech

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

 writer and playwright. Her play Její pastorkyňa was the basis for the opera Jenůfa

Jenufa

Jenůfa is an opera in three acts by Leoš Janáček to a Czech libretto by the composer, based on the play Její pastorkyňa by Gabriela Preissová. It was first performed at the Brno Theater, Brno, 21 January 1904...

by Leoš Janáček

Leoš Janácek

Leoš Janáček was a Czech composer, musical theorist, folklorist, publicist and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and all Slavic folk music to create an original, modern musical style. Until 1895 he devoted himself mainly to folkloristic research and his early musical output was influenced by...

. His earlier opera The Beginning of a Romance was also based on one of her stories.

Preissová mostly wrote stories full of optimism and the joy of life idealising village life. Her stories first appeared in the early 1890s. The more significant appeared in a three-volume collection. Her books, written in the 1920s, were about the tragic rural life of the Kaerntner (Austria) Slavs, usually with a strong woman as a heroine. These dramas didn't achieve the artistic spontaneity of her early work. Themes of her stories were mostly the affaires of young lovers and the obstacles to their consummation. Some tales were set to music, such as Eva by Josef Bohuslav Foerster

Josef Bohuslav Foerster

Josef Bohuslav Foerster was a Czech composer of classical music. He is often referred to as J. B. Foerster. The surname is sometimes spelled Förster.- Life :...

 and Jenůfa, an opera by Janáček.