Poetry  |  English sample translation available

Šimon Leitgeb’s second book of poetry sees its release three years after the writer’s remarkable debut and follows it in many aspects. The children’s or youngster’s perspective is still being practiced; again, the poems are anchored in a context that this time takes the form of a story divided into three sections. However, unlike the raw style of the first collection, the new texts exhibit softening by turning to melancholy and a greater degree of a figurative approach, which sometimes takes on the nature of symbolism. The world turns out to be a strange place to exist in.

About the author:

Šimon Leitgeb (1996) grew up in Malonty – a village in the mountains of Novohradské hory. He produced a collection of poetry entitled Mezi náma (Between Us; Nakladatelství Petr Štengl publishing house, 2017) and Betonová pláž (Concrete Beach; (JT’s nakladatelství publishing house, 2020). He has been published in most of the Czech literary journals and appeared in the anthology of Nejlepší české básně 2016 (The Best Czech Poems of 2016; Host publishing house, 2016). His poems have been translated and published in Austria, Ukraine and Romania. He lives alternately abroad and in České Budějovice, where he is an active participant in the local cultural life by organising the literary-music programme Mezi náma (Between Us) and the Literatura žije! (Literature Lives!) festival.