Jindra Tichy (77) said her book Death and Forgiveness will be published next month.
The fictional work, interweaving two separate stories of death and rebirth, is set in Prague and Dunedin.
When Mrs Tichy moved to New Zealand in 1970 she was in exile with her husband Pavel Tichy, and children Peter and Veronica.
Her journey to New Zealand began when Russia invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968.
''It was complete chaos.''
She and her husband lost their jobs at Charles University in Prague for political reasons.
''We were supposed to be undermining the communists - which we probably were.''
Fearing prosecution, the family escaped Czechoslovakia.
''We decided to run for it.''
Her husband fled first and she and her son escaped just four days before the border's closure, which lasted until 1989.
For escaping, she was sentenced - in absentia - to a prison term in a labour camp.
In 1972, she started to lecture in philosophy and political science at the University of Otago in Dunedin.
In 1989, the communist regime in Czechoslovakia disintegrated and she was granted amnesty.
She visited Prague later that year with several manuscripts she had written in exile.
She retired from the University of Otago in 2004 to write full time and had 18 books published in the Czech language.
