Antonín Mareš (born 1951 in Boskovice) grew up in Brno, Město Albrechtice and Krnov. In September 1968 he emigrated with his parents to Germany. In London he studied English, and in the Bavarian city of Munich he studied English, Russian and Italian at a specialist translation school (The Pitman School of English, Sprachen- und Dolmetscherinstitut München, fields of science and technology).
He lives in Munich and works as a translator. Apart from literary work he also devotes himself to painting, drawing and mail art (e.g. an exhibition in New York in 1987 in the gallery Wooster 22 / SoHo, NYC together with Ik Joong Kang and Michael Oelman, Throw Everything Together And Add), and from 1984 to 2009 he was a member of the Professional Association of Artists in Bavaria, the BBK (Berufsverband Bildender Künstler). Founder of the internet project Coporuce (2001). He published for the first time in 1971 (German poems and stories in the book Junge Ulmer Autoren) and for the story Binci Minzi he was awarded the Ulmer Neues Theater prize in 1970.
In 1999 a collection of his poems, Nix verstehen, was brought out (Vetus Via) along with the prose work Přímý přenos (Votobia), consisting of mail-art postcards sent to Ladislav Daňek. Other texts were published in the magazine Psí víno (first in no. 39/2007), in the anthology Vertikální nostalgie (Votobia 2002), in the books of Jan Vrak (Osm hlav, Votobia 2000; Potom, Votobia 2003), in Dobrá adresa (8/2007), the miscellany Wagon (I/2008), in the magazine Souvislosti (2008) andWeles (2008). The author’s story Nomen-omen came out in Revolver Revue no. 75/2009.
The Svitavy theatre company Divadlo C staged the play Slon (originally written in German as Geschichte eines Elefentan, production by Karl Suppe Theater, Kassel in cooperation with Albert Völkl and Stefan Becker, early 90s, the Federal State of Schleswig Holstein’s prize for the theatrical children’s play of the month) based on his story of the same name; the play achieved recognition at the Jiráskův Hronov festival. Films have been made about his literary work by Jan Dadák (for Salon, Czech TV 2) and Thomas Büsch and Sabine Küper (The Story of Water Sprite based on the story Rialto, originally written in German, 2005). The majority of his manuscripts have not yet been published. He has only Czech citizenship.
This profile was last updated on 1. 11. 2010
