The six poets whose work is included in this collection belong to two very different generations: the generation exiled by the totalitarian regime of pre-Velvet Revolution Czechoslovakia – and the younger generation which started publishing in the late 1990s.
The three poets reading today represent these two strands of Czech Poetry.
Viola Fischerova was born in 1935 in Brno. She lived in exile for many years, returning to live in Prague in 1994. She began writing in the 1950s but was not allowed to publish until the 1990s: she now has eight published collections of poetry.
Petr Halmay was born in 1958 in Prague and has had a variety of jobs. He published two collections in 1991 and 1997 – the poems in this anthology come from his latest collection Koncova svetla (“Rear Lights”), published in 2004.
Pavel Kolmacka was born in 1962 in Prague and graduated from the School of Electrical Engineering – since 1993 he has worked as technical translator from English. He published two poetry collections in 1994 and 1998 and a novel in 2006.
Literature Across Frontiers
In association with
Czech Centre
Manchester Central Library
Reception Room, Second Floor