Authors
Petr NIKL
The multi-talented artist Petr Nikl was born on November 8th 1960 in Zlín to the family of a formally trained painter and a toy designer. He studied at the secondary school of applied arts in Uherské Hradiště and at the AVU in Prague under Professor Arnošt Paderlík and Jiří Ptáček. In 1985 he set up the MEHEDAHA puppet theatre association, and in 1987 he became one of the founding members of the Tvrdohlaví art group. Petr Nikl is involved in free creation (pictures), book illustration, theatre, music, performance and writing.
He is also responsible for the interactive exhibitions Hnízda her [Nests of Games] (Rudolfinum 2000), Krajina fantazie a hudby [The Landscape of Fantasy and Music] (the Czech pavilion at EXPO 2005), Orbis Pictus, Labyrint světla [Labyrinth of Light] and Golem. His artistic universality is demonstrated by the number of prizes he has been awarded: the Jindřich Chalupecký Prize in 1995, repeated success in competitions such as the Most Beautiful Book of the Year, the Angel Prize in the alternative music category for the album Nebojím se smrtihlava [I Don’t Fear the Death’s Head] (with the Lakomé Barky ensemble, 2004), and the Magnesia Litera Book of the Year for Záhádky [Puzzles] (2007).
Petr Nikl has established himself as a writer with the books that he has had published by Meander publishers. Alongside his own books, Nikl also illustrates other books (Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince, Hiršalův skicák [Hiršal’s Sketchbook] and so on), and it is precisely his own illustrations which create such an essential part of his own literary efforts.
If we ignore the samizdat nonsense poetry which the MEHEDAHA association published in the 1980s, then we could consider Nikl’s literary debut to be the book Vyhnání z ráje [Expulsion from Paradise] (Takitak, Prague 1998), which was awarded the prize for Most Beautiful Book of the Year in the category for children and young people. The next book chronologically is Atlas saltA, which though published by Aulos publishers in 2002 actually first came out in 2000. However, he did not become well known to readers and specialists until the book Pohádka o Rybitince [The Rybitinka Fairy Tale] (2001), which opened Meander publishers’ artistic book series entitled Modrý slon (Blue Elephant). Petr Nikl even designed the logo for this series. As with all the books in this series, Pohádka o Rybitince is very graphically inventive and is in many respects revolutionary in the context of books for children. It is distinguished by its penetrating prose and verse passages which in many ways prefigure Nikl’s subsequent books. We see here Nikl’s typical static illustrations produced by the technique of mezzotint. In this regard, the book is very similar to Nikl’s second book with Meander, a story entitled O Rybabě a Mořské duši [Rybaba and the Sea’s Soul] (2002). The theme of life underwater and the technical use of the illustrations are the same, however the colours are changed here (this book is illustrated solely in shades of dark green), and the quality of the literary text is significantly different. The motto of the book is “What occurred to me when I drew fish which came to me when I wrote about them”, however through a Morgensternian idea of sense in nonsense he prefigures the language games of his subsequent books.
Though it took four years for Nikl’s next book to come out, since that time he has published a book a year over the past four years with Meander and it certainly does not appear as though the author’s imagination has been exhausted. That is certainly due to the lateness of Nikl’s debut, and therefore the wealth of material the author has stored up. It is in connection with this we find Nikl’s Lingvistické pohádky (Linguistic Fairy Tales) (2006), which first came out in 1994. Lingvistické pohádky are certainly not fairy tales in the traditional sense, rather they are a type of atlas of the author’s literary creations which are acted out in the kingdom of Lingvízie. The small stories based on plays on words were the first to make an impression on judges outside of art competitions: the book made it through to the final of the newly established Josef Škvorecký Prize and it won the Zlatá stuha prize for its text.
The next book Záhádky won the Book of the Year prize in 2007 in the “television book show” Magnesia Litera, the first time in the new millenium that a children’s book had announced its arrival with such a fanfare – and it is significant that, as is usual with Petr Nikl, this is a title which interests – perhaps even mainly – adults. The mixing of genres and its impenetrability might upset the reader expecting a “classic” book for children, but with this book Petr Nikl has given Czech nonsense literature a distinctly new character.
In 2008 Petr Nikl brought out the almost unpronounceable Jělěňovití. This “collection of poetry and shorter prose”, as cited from the publisher’s notes, originated in an unconventional manner – as an accompaniment to the author’s older illustrations from the 1980s. This approach also revealed the weaknesses in Nikl’s writing – some texts fall flat with no point, in other places the writer uses approaches which have already been seen in older books. More than any other, this book shows the influence of the doyen of nonsense poetry, the German poet Christian Morgenstern, and is also the first of Nikl’s books which comes with a CD of the author reading the text – and this recording reveals where the strength of Nikl’s works lie: in the present moment, in the atmosphere of artistic collaboration. However, from this also derives the author’s handicap – a definitive capturing of the form of the book’s text sometimes fails to do it justice.
Nikl’s last work to date came out in the autumn of 2009. Niklův blázníček (Nikl’s Little Fool) represents his most courageous step towards a poetic of nonsense and has again been best characterised by the publisher’s notes: “a collection of wonders which the author has come across over the years, whether in fantasy or in real life.” This time the author has turned towards the English tradition – the book is dominated by Nikl’s multiple variations on limericks, nursery rhymes and word games, mostly within fixed verse. However, alongside his unrestrained play with words darker elements also seep into the book, moments of uncertainty as though from the depressive side of the author which up until now had only been witnessed in his song lyrics. Somewhat paradoxically, through the form of the book the author again comes closer to the child reader, at least to the youngest and the inexperienced, who are willing to join in the author’s games with words and with the world.
(rm)
This profile was last updated on 1. 1. 2010
