Born in Slovakia, Peter Petro began his studies at the Comenius University in Bratislava with a double major: English and Spanish. He came to Vancouver and continued his studies at the University of British Columbia in Russian and Spanish (B.A., 1970) and in Russian literature (M.A., 1972). He then moved to the University of Alberta to study comparative literature, where he obtained his Ph.D. in 1978.

In 1977 he was appointed to teach Russian language and literature in the Department of Slavonic Studies, U.B.C, and was previously the coordinator of the Russian program (in the Department of Germanic Studies), and Chair of the Program in Modern European Studies. He taught Russian language at all levels, undergraduate courses in Russian literature and in Slavic literatures in translation as well as graduate seminars in Russian and comparative literature.

In addition to over sixty articles and translations, his publications include four books: Modern Satire: Four Studies (1982), which deals with the works of modern Czech, English, Russian and American authors; History of Slovak Literature (1995); a translation of the prize-winning novel by Milan Simecka, The Year of the Frog (1993); and an edition of critical articles on Milan Kundera, Critical Essays on Milan Kundera (New York: G.K Hall Ltd., 1999). His translation of Alexej Fulmek’s Dispatches from the Home Front appeared in 2000.

Dr. Petro is member of the editorial boards of Slovakia and Most, and of the advisory board of CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture: A WWWeb Journal, accessible at http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/.

Slovak literature; Russian, Czech, Polish and comparative literature.