An extraordinary mono-thematic collection by the most respected contemporary Czech poet.

Poetry  |  English sample translation available

Petr Hruška has been publishing collections of poems for 20 years and throughout that time, they have all contained a noticeable motif of a character inspired by his stepson, Adam. Hruška selected these poems, added new ones and compiled a collection. A man “on the periphery”, who is not and cannot be part of our world in its current form, and yet has been yearning for it, takes centre stage in this collection. A tall, old for his age child, as a symbol of our tragicomic, obstinate and always vain efforts to succeed, is a bitter metaphor as well as a central point of these poems.

Petr Hruška (1964) is a poet and literary historian who lives in Ostrava. His poetry has won a number of state and international awards, including the Czech State Award for Literature in recognition of his collection Darmata (To No Travail, 2012), and the Magnesia Litera, the most prestigious annual literary award in the Czech Republic, for his newest collection, Spatřil jsem svou tvář (I Caught Sight of My Face, 2022), an extended meditation on Magellan’s voyage around the world. He writes screenplays, publishes a literary magazine, co-organizes literary events and festivals, and participates in civic initiatives for environmental causes and the preservation of cultural monuments in his region. Hruška also writes short stories, columns, and essays, many of which are collected in V závalu (Cave-In, 2020). He works at the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague, specializing in poetry from the twentieth century to the present, and is the author of scholarly articles and books on Czech poetry. Collections of Hruška’s poetry have been published in French, German, Polish, Italian, Hungarian, Romanian, and Croatian translation.