Poetry, history, tradition and mysticism as ways to counter prejudice about cultural differences.

Poetry

In his fourth collection of poetry, Adam Borzič not only pays tribute to Goethe’s West-Eastern Divan, but he also tries to remind us of traditional European values which are threatened more by their internal disintegration than by Islam. As an expert on Islamic mysticism in the shape of the Sufi movement, he attempts to assuage European fears about Muslims. He recalls and subtly contrasts figures from various ages, particularly from the Renaissance (including the Medici family, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Al Ghazali, Ibn Arabi and Haji Bektash). By understanding a philosophy and a culture which are closer to us in Europe than we might imagine, and which even mirror our own culture, lies the understanding of the beauty of life and the world in its entirety. Unconventionally, these poems are accompanied by a wide-ranging essay.

Adam Borzič (1978) is a poet, journalist and editor-in-chief of the literary fortnightly journal Tvar. He is a co-founder of the poetry group Fantasía (together with Kamil Bouška and Petr Řehák), which published the book Fantasía (2008). He has also published poetry collections such as Rozevírání (Folding Back, 2011), Počasí v Evropě (The Weather in Europe, 2013), which was nominated for a Magnesia Litera Award in 2014, Orfické linie (The Orpheus Line, 2015) and Západo-východní zrcadla (West-Eastern Mirrors). Excerpts from his poetry have been translated into several European languages. In addition to literature he is also interested in psychotherapy and spirituality. Together with Olga Pavlová and Ondřej Slačálek, he wrote the monograph Proroci post-utopického radikalismu: Alexandr Dugin a Hakim Bey (Prophets of a Post-utopian Radicalism: Alexandr Dugin and Hakim Bey, 2018).