Authors

He also lived in other countries (most frequently in Germany) and after 1989 he returned to the Czech Republic. In addition to literature, he also devotes himself to painting and photography, and occasionally to film and theatre acting. 

Třešňák’s first prose and song-lyric texts were disseminated in samizdat copies, editions and magazines, and later they were published in exile periodicals; several of his LPs also came out abroad (in Sweden, Zeměměřič in 1979 and Koh-i-noor in 1983). With his social nonconformism and criticism he was from the beginning akin to the Czech literature of the underground: in down-at-heel restaurants, in Karlin’s pubs, deserted factories and warehouses are found the themes for his texts, which are diverse in genre and to a certain extent autobiographical. His socially expressive, one might say modern proletarian poetic was shaped by the influence of Bohumil Hrabal, especially with its emphasis on literary dialogue, mingling streams of conversation, often non-standard, garbled language, and on those who use it, typically characters from the margins of society. Through his playfully constructed stories, novellas, novels and sung poetry, sensitive to detail and recurring motifs, he takes us through the first years of normalization and the emerging decision to emigrate (Babylon), as well as the subsequent departure from the Czech lands and the experiences and feelings of an exile in a new environment (To nejdůležitější o panu Moritzovi), and subsequently also the socio-cultural changes and development after 1989 (Klíč je pod rohožkou, Domácí hosté) leading to the wryly comic, industrially entertained present (Melouch). After 1989 he brought out two new CDs of songs, Koláž (1995) and Inventura (2005); Třešňák compiled lyrics from his songs into the volume Plonková sedmička.

Deutsch Vlastimil TŘEŠŇÁK

En français Vlastimil TŘEŠŇÁK