Authors
Karel ŠIKTANC
The writer and translator Karel Šiktanc was born on July 10th 1928 in Hřebeč near Kladno. After graduating from a teaching school and the incompletion of his studies at the College of Education, in 1950 he became editor of Czech Radio. From 1956 he worked on the editorial board of the magazine Květen and co-edited its almanacs; in the second half of the 1960s he was part of the editorial staff of the magazine Orientace. From 1961-1971 he was editor-in-chief of Mladá fronta publishers. During normalization he did not publish anything officially and had several different occupations (for example, maintaining the tennis courts in Štvanice) and he was a signatory of Charter 77. After 1989 his works began to be published once more. Apart from poetry he also writes for children. He lives in Prague.
Despite Karel Šiktanc being a generation younger, as a poet he belongs to the expressively melodic poetic world of Halas, Seifert and Orten. From his committed, optimistic and histrionic beginnings, influenced by the ruling ideology of the time, he went on to become rooted in the poetry of the everyday in a Wolkeresque enthusiasm for ordinary things. However, from within Šiktanc there gradually emerged a poetic spirit that was deeper, more observant and more sensitive: maintaining a sense for minutiae and detail, but often transforming this into dramatic and metaphorical forms. Uncertainty, a fear of stereotypes and the need to find continuity begin to dominate. The words come to life in the texts, poetic structures are torn up, the verses become a sporadic drawing out of ideas, of persistent questions and inner pain filled with moments of silence. If Šiktanc’s juvenile work was aligned with the creative enthusiasm of the first half of the 1950s, then his mature work falls into the era of normalization; the poetic prose Mariášky, published in 1970, was to be his last officially published book for a long period. It was this brutal outside intervention which enriched Karel Šiktanc’s poetic expression by another tone - that of a critical view of reality. This can be seen in the themes of his 12-part composition Český orloj (The Czech Astronomical Clock), one of the most famous collections of poetry, which centres around a fictitious dialogue between a father and a son, including threats to national traditions and a destruction of the natural order as well as the ability to be open to inspiring experiences. Karel Šiktanc’s poetry is firmly rooted in a complexly constructed verse, an increasingly lyrical poetry and in a rearranging and stratifying of meanings. His poetry is balladic, it has a striking sound and is connected to folk poetry and the more general surroundings of village life. The background motifs remain memories from childhood, traditional order, Christian and pre-Christian mythical archetypes – through his poetry the author is recapturing and evoking the fading of human, family and even historical memory. Karel Šiktanc is the holder of the Jaroslav Seifert Prize (for his collection Srdce svého nejez [Don’t Eat Your Heart] ), the Czech Literary Fund Prize, the State Literature Prize (Šarlat [Scarlet] ) and the Magnesia Litera Prize (Zimoviště [Winter Quarters] ). Karolinum publishers are bringing out his collected works (Dílo) under the editorial supervision of Jiří Brabec: seven of the eight volumes are currently available in bookshops.
(mmm)
This profile was last updated on January 1st 2007
Deutsch 
Karel ŠIKTANC, Deutsch.doc
