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Originally Posted by Wikipedia
Czech literature is the literature of the historical regions of Bohemia, Moravia, and the Czech-speaking part of Silesia, (now part of the Czech Republic, formerly of Czechoslovakia). This most often means literature written by Czechs, in the Czech language, although Old Church Slavonic, Latin, and German were also used, mostly in the early periods. Modern authors from the Czech territory who wrote in other languages (e.g. German) are generally considered separately, and their writing usually existed in parallel with Czech-language literature and did not interact with it. Thus Franz Kafka, for example, who wrote in German (though he also knew Czech rather well), falls within Austrian literature, though he lived his entire life in Bohemia.
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Regardles of what Wikipedia says, I would still consider Franz Kafka to be Czech. If not in literature, definitely by nationality. But Kafka aside there are loads of Czech writers out there - past and present - that have been translated to English. It's just finding the best point to test the water before jumping in.
Names that I have on my shelves are
Bohumil Hrabal, Arnošt Lustig, and, although some of his works were written in French,
Milan Kundera. Yes, I've barely scratched the surface. But beyond these guys, other names do come to mind, such as Jaroslav Hašek, Jiří Weil, and Ivan Klima. And then there's
Twisted Spoon Press, based in Prague, bringing out many titles of established and 'coming up' Czech literature that, having thumbed through a few titles in my local book store, all look tempting.
So, who have you read? What Czech writers are severely underlooked?