The American way of life has never suited me
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David Hochman was born on September 1, 1964 in Washington, D.C. to Zuzana and Jiri Hochman. His mother worked as a journalist at Czechoslovak Television, his father worked at the Red Law daily (RP). His parents left for the USA in 1963, where his father worked as a foreign correspondent for RP. In 1967 they returned to Czechoslovakia. During the Prague Spring, his father worked at the magazine Reporter. He was affected by the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops and refused to accept the coming normalisation. He spent seven months in detention. In 1974, the family moved to the USA, where they settled in Columbus, Ohio. Jiří Hochman became a university teacher at Ohio State University. Among other things, he published in the exile publishing houses Index and Sixty-Eight Publishers. David Hochman graduated from a Catholic secondary school, after which he went on to study engineering at Ohio State University. He graduated in 1988. He spent the next four years in France. He then lived in South Africa for more than 20 years. He devoted himself to writing. He writes in English, and his novel Apology to Julia, translated by his father, has been published in English. In 2025 he was living in Prague.
