Vladimír Cerha

After elementary school, he enrolled in a gymnasium in Brandýs nad Labem, but interrupted his studies in the first year and trained as an electromechanic. After his training, he worked as a technician at the ZPA Čakovice plant. At the same time, he began studying at the Secondary Industrial School of Engineering in Čelákovice and after graduation (1992) took a full-time study at the Faculty of Environmental Studies of the University of Warsaw in Ústí nad Labem.

From the age of 18, he was a member of the Czechoslovak Entomological Society, engaged in the collection and study of beetles from the family Curculionidae of the Czech Central Highlands. At the same time, he devoted himself to amateur oil painting of landscapes and early nudes and during his studies, he also attended zoological and art lectures at the Faculty of Education. He wrote popular science articles for magazines, especially for the breeding-oriented magazine Fauna, where he eventually became a member of the editorial board.

At the same time, he devoted himself to writing prose – short detective stories and romantic tales, which he published in various magazines, sometimes even under randomly invented pseudonyms (to make the stories seem authentic). In addition, he worked for the Gallery za branu in Louny (from 1993 to 1999 he was a student of Dr. Petr Růžička – drawing and graphics) as an external graphic designer and author of pen drawings for commercial use.

He changed a number of jobs in which he sought inspiration for his work. Among other things, he was the head of small businesses, an electrician, an advertising consultant, a manager of a tourist lodge, a salesman, a worker in the production of car parts belts, an IT worker for data collection, an employee of a private detective agency, worked as a self-employed person in a tattoo studio, and as an administrative worker and clerk at the district court.