Czech and International Poetry Days in Prague

(ROMANIA)
was born in 1960 in Bucharest/Romania and he now works as a freelance writer in Vienna. He is a member of the Association of Romanian Writers. His many prose, poetry and theatre works include, I Kiss your Ass, Beloved Führer, You’ll Shrivel Up,You’ll be an Exotic Fruit, Daniel, of the Prayer, and The Federal Republic of Daniel Bănulescu. Bănulescu’s works have been performed and read widely at numerous international poetry and theatre festivals. His many awards include the City of Münster prize for European Poetry in 2005.

11. 11. Tuesday, 19:00
Café and Bookshop Fra, Šafaříkova 15, Prague 2

12. 11. Wednesday, 19:00
Romanian Cultural Institute, Anglická 26, Prague 2 

13. 11. Thursday, 19:00
Cultural Cafe Jabloň, Krátká 2, Pilsen  

14.11. Friday, 11:00
Palacký University Olomouc, Křížkovského 8, Olomouc

(CZECH REPUBLIC)
born 1953, in Karlovy Vary, is a poet, song-writer, author, translator and President of the Czech Centre of International PEN. He started writing in 1974, and his output includes poetry, songs, essays, children’s books, plays and musicals. He sees the texts of his songs as the main area of his creativity. His has written over twenty books and his most recent publications include: Snídaně se psem (Torst, 2008), Bát se a krást (Galén, 2005), Uleželé želé (Albatros, 2005) a Blues pro slušný lidi (Academia, Praha 2002).

12. 11. Wednesday, 14:00
Czech PEN klub, Klementinum 190 /5th floor/, Prague 1 

13. 11. Thursday, 19:00
Czech Centre, Rytířská 31, Prague 1 

18. 11. Tuesday, 18:00
Liberec Regional Library, Rumjancevova 1362/1, Liberec

19. 11. Wednesday, 17:00
Slavoj Town Library, Tylova 512, Dvůr Králové nad Labem 

(CZECH REPUBLIC)
The writer and musician Vojtěch Fabián was born in 1949 in Vlčany near Nové Zámky, the oldest son of the writer and poet Tera Fabiánová. He writes his poetry in both Romani and Czech, many of them originating as song lyrics. His poetry appeared in the collection of Romani poetry Romské písně / Romane giľa (1979). He is an artist as well as a writer and musician. In his language one can detect elements of “Hungarian” Romany vernacular, a trait inherited from his mother.

19. 11. Wednesday, 19:00
Řetězová Literary Cafe, Řetězová 10, Praha 1

(SLOVAKIA)
(b. 21.08.1978) Carpenter by trade. Lives and works in Dobšina, East Slovakia. Has received a number of awards for his work, including in the Wolkrova Polianka competition (organised by the association of Slovak writers) and Literary Zvolen. He has published widely in literary journals (Literárne kroky, Dotyky, Dielňa Nového slova, LET, Plzeňský literární život, Slovenský rozhlas).His debut collection of poems, Smrť zahroteným prstom, was published in 2007 (Vadavatešľstvo SSS, Bratislava).

16. 11. Sunday, 20:00
Blues Sklep, Liliová 10, Prague 1 

(CZECH REPUBLIC)
was born in Hradec Králové in 1930. A poet, essayist and translator from English and German, he worked as publishing editor and second-hand bookseller, after he joined the Charter 77 movement he worked as janitor until the Velvet Revolution in 1989. After 1990 he taught medical ethics at Charles University. His first volume of poetry, Všechna slast (All the Pleasure) was published in Prague in 1964, but all his subsequent work had to come out in samizdat editions and were republished in the 1990s. His collected poems came out in 1996. A selection of his poems in English translation was published by Southword Editions under the title A Stay in the Sanatorium, in a translation by Bernard O’Donoghue with Šimon Daníček.

23.11. Sunday, 19:00
Czech Centre, Rytířská 31, Prague 1

(HUNGARY)
The noted poet and translator was born in Budapest in 1949. In 1973 he graduated in English and Russian from Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest and gained a further degree in Hungarian in 1978. From 1984-1986 he was an editor of the magazine Kortárs and from 1997-2000 edited the poetry section of the magazine Élet és Irodalom. Since 1976, 12 collections of his poetry have been published. He also translates poetry and prose from English and Russian. He has been awarded many prestigious prizes in recognition of his work.

12. 11. Wednesday, 19:00
Romanian Cultural Institute, Anglická 26, Prague 2 

(ALGERIA)
, a noted Berber poet from Kabylie, born 1975. She first published her poems in Angers in the literary magazine P’tit Pavé, and in the anthology Comme une foret de mots dits (2002). Her works include her collection of poems L'Aube vierge (The Virgin Dawn, 2003), and a collection of Berber poems published in Algeria in 2005 in honour of women, Ligh uqbel ad iligh. Amongst many other plaudits, in 2006, she was awarded a prestigious prize by the Mediterranean Women’s Forum in Marseille – for her short story Anagi n tudert.

11. 11. Tuesday, 17:00
Strahov Memorial to National Literature, Božena Němcová Hall, Strahovské nádvoří 1/132, Prague 1 

12. 11. Wednesday, 14:00
Czech PEN, Klementinum 190 /5th. floor/, Prague 1 

14. 11. Friday, 17:00
French Institute, Štěpánská 35, Prague 1 

(CZECH REPUBLIC)
The poet J. H. Krchovský (real name, Jiří Hásek), was born on April 22, 1960 in Prague. He lives in Prague and Brno. He has been writing poetry since the late 70's and was one of the most outstanding artists of the Czech underground of the 80s. His grotesque, rhymed poetry returns to the tradition of Czech decadence, with its symbols such as death, pain and frustration wrapped in a choking cloud of alcohol and eroticism. J. H. Krchovský has published a number of  volumes, including: Noci, po nichž nepřichází ráno (1991), Dodatky... (1997), Vše nejlepší... (1998), Poslední list (2003), Nad jedním světem (2004).

20. 11. Thursday, 19:00
Řetězová Literary Cafe, Řetězová 10, Prague 1 

(HUNGARY)
Novelist, translator, editor; born in Subotica, Yugoslavia, in 1967. A graduate of the Philosophical Faculty in Novy Sad, with a degree in Hungarian Language and Literature (1991). Since 1998, she has been the chief editor of the magazine Üzenet (Legacy) in Subotica. Ildikó Lovas has been publishing since 1987, bringing out three collections of short stories and three novels; the last, published in 2007, was called The Spanish Bride. She has been awarded several prestigious prizes for literature.

12. 11. Wednesday, 19:00
Romanian Cultural Institute, Anglická 26, Prague 2

(WALES)
was born in Tunisia in 1968, and was brought up in Venezuela, Iran, Belgium and England. He studied English at Cambridge and York, and then a doctorate at Oxford, where he is now Professor of French and Comparative Literature. His first book of poems was The Canals of Mars, and his second, 19th Century Blues, won the 2006 Poetry Business Prize. He won an Eric Gregory Award for poetry in 1998, and the American Poetry Foundation’s Levinson Prize in 2003. He lives in Caernarfon, North Wales. www.patrickmcguinness.org.

18. 11. Tuesday, 19:30
Café and Bookshop Fraa, Šafaříkova 15, Prague 2

19. 11. Wednesday, 17:00
Antikvariát Fiducia, Nádražní 30, Ostrava 

(IRELAND)
was born in Cork City in 1942. Her collections include Acts and Monuments, Site of Ambush, The Second Voyage, The Rose Geranium, The Magdalene Sermon, The Brazen Serpent and The Girl Who Married the Reindeer. Her awards include the Patrick Kavanagh Prize and her Selected Poems were published jointly this year by Gallery and Faber. She is a Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, and is married to the poet Macdara Woods. (The photo of Eiléan is by Clair Lalor)

13. 11. Thursday, 19:00
Czech Centre, Rytířská 31, Prague 1 

14.11. Friday, 10:50
Embassy of Ireland, Tržiště 13, 118 00 Prague 1 

(ROMANIA)
was born in 1980, in Fagaras (Romania) and studied Romanian and French Literature and the Theory of Literature at the University of Bucharest. Her books include: pedagogical poems (2002) and ecograffiti.pedagogical poems. flags on towers, published by Vinea in 2003. Her poetry has appeared in a number of Romanian and international reviews and anthologies and has been translated into Hungarian, Slovenian, English, Slovak and Serbian. She currently lives in Luxembourg.

11. 11. Tuesday, 19:00
Café and Bookshop Fraa, Šafaříkova 15, Prague 2

12. 11. Wednesday, 19:00
Romanian Cultural Institute, Anglická 26, Prague 2 

13. 11. Thursday, 19:00
Cultural Cafe Jabloň, Krátká 2, Pilsen  

14.11. Friday, 11:00
Palacký University Olomouc, Křížkovského 8, Olomouc

(CZECH REPUBLIC)
Born in 1972 in Jablonec nad Nisou. He has published two collections of poetry, …and other times (1994) and Why (1995) and two books of poetic prose, Hotel Bristol (2004) and The Town of Mons (2005). Straka’s texts are sometimes written as poems in free verse, though prose prevails. His writing has an existential tone. However, Straka is not a philosopher, but a poet. Thus, he does not define, but rather suggests, lightly touching on terms such as ‘being in the world, movement, solitude or stagnancy’.

23.11. Sunday, 19:00
Czech Centre, Rytířská 31, Prague 1

(CZECH REPUBLIC)
Jan Štolba was born in Prague in 1957. At the beginning of his career, he played 1920's and 1930's jazz in Prague swing bands OPSO and Jazzphonic quintet. Later on, he appeared on the Czech alternative rock scene of the 1970´s and 1980's. At present, he composes his own material. He has published several books of fiction and poetry and in 2006 he received the prestigious F.X. Šalda prize for his book of literary criticism, Nedopadající džbán (The Unfalling Jug).

23.11. Sunday, 19:00
Czech Centre, Rytířská 31, Prague 1