Bronislava Volková, 1946- , is a Czech poet and Professor Emerita of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Indiana University. After growing up in Prague, she left Czechoslovakia in 1974 during the Communist rule of the country. She lived for two years in West Germany before emigrating to the United States where she taught at several universities. During her exile, Volková became a poet in Czech, her lost mother tongue; she would later be known as a bilingual poet in Czech and English. In her works she emphasized the importance of Czech poetry tradition. She joined the IU faculty in 1982, where she became a Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Jewish Studies, and Comparative Literature. She also served as Director of the Czech Program at Indiana University. Volková is the author of Emotive Signs in Language (Amsterdam, 1987), six books of Czech poetry, and an English book of poetry called The Courage of the Rainbow (New York, 1993).