A compelling novel about a troubled childhood and a journey through the labyrinth of memory.

Literary fiction

In his debut novel, the poet and novelist Marek Torčík delves into the recesses of memory in an effort to come to terms with painful memories from his childhood. As a homosexual boy with a slight build growing up in a small industrial town, the protagonist of the story faces severe bullying at school, but his problems aren’t over once he gets home: his mother, a low-paid factory worker who has to look after her father, an alcoholic nearing the end of his life, has very little tolerance of her son’s sexual orientation. One bright spot amid the bleakness of small-town life is the friendship he strikes up with a Romany classmate, Marian, which later develops into a romantic relationship. In the novel Memory Burn, Marek Torčík not only describes people living on the fringes of society in a convincing, sophisticated and precise way but also implies that sometimes it is better to wipe the slate clean and liberate oneself from negative childhood memories.

Marek Torčík (1993) is a poet, novelist and journalist. He is originally from Přerov and now lives in Prague, where he also studied English literature and culture at Charles University. In 2016, his poetry collection Rhizomy (Rhizomes) was published. In 2018 and 2020 he was one of the ten finalists in the Czech–Slovak poetry competition Básne SK/CZ. His debut novel Rozložíš paměť (Memory Burn, 2023) was chosen for the tenth Susanna Roth Award for beginner translators of Czech literature.