An imaginative journey through the squats of Barcelona, where the rhythm of life is different.

Literary fiction

In the semi-autobiographical novel Cursed Are They Who Come, the narrator describes the time she spent in Barcelona’s squats. They mainly come alive at night – not least because the streets of Barcelona are unbearably hot during the day – and this night-time existence, filled with endless parties and altered states of consciousness, is described by the author using exceptionally imaginative language. This conjures up a picture of Barcelona’s squats as a city within a city which has its own rules. However, even this parallel world eventually begins to be infiltrated by outside influences such as social hierarchy and the desire for money. The fact that the author does not turn a blind eye to these aspects of the main character’s time in the squats ensures that her novel is not only a highly evocative piece of literature but also an incisive and sobering commentary on social structures and developments.

In her art as well as in her writing Bára Bažantová deals primarily with the issues of social exclusion and life on the margins of society. From a background of anarchism, communal spaces and critical practice, she has become part of the institutional environment. In 2023, she published two books, Hoří chemička, něco si přej (Make a Wish, the Chemical Factory is Burning) and Prokletý, kdo přichází (Cursed are They Who Come). Her writing has been published in A2, Kapitál, Revue Prostor, Tvar and the critical monthly Druhá směna. She collaborates with the German-Czech online magazine JÁDU, the tranzit.cz initiative, the civic association Ramus and the contemporary poetry platform Psí víno. She is the founder of the Pojď ven! civic organization, which is dedicated to working with mostly Roma children growing up in excluded localities.