Petr Hruška (poet) explained

Petr Hruška (born 7 June 1964) is a Czech poet, screenwriter, literary critic and academic.

Life

Hruška was born in Ostrava, a city known for coal-mining and steel production, and many of his poems reflect the industrial, working-class nature of the city, whose traditional industries have gone pear-shaped. He got his engineering degree (Ing.) at VŠB-Technical University of Ostrava (he specialised in water purification, 1987), MA at the Faculty of Arts of University of Ostrava (1990–94, thesis "Contemporary Czech subculture prose and poetry") and Ph.D. at the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University in Brno ("Postwar surrealism and the reaction to the momentum of the avant-garde model in the official poetry", 2003). He works at the Department of Czech Literature at Czech Academy of Sciences in Brno where he focuses on Czech post-1945 poetry. He co-authored the four-volume History of Czech literature 1945 – 1989 (Dějiny české literatury 1945 – 1989), the second volume of the Dictionary of Czech writers since 1945 (Slovníku českých spisovatelů od roku 1945), and Dictionary of Czech Literary Magazines, Periodical Anthologies and Almanacs 1945 – 2000 (Slovenian: Slovník českých literárních časopisů, periodických literárních sborníků a almanachů 1945–2000).

He also worked as a university lecturer of Czech literature at Masaryk University and the University of Ostrava. He was a member of the body of editors of the magazine Host and is an editor of the magazine Obrácená strana měsíce. Between 1995–1998 he participated in publishing the magazine Landek (with Jan Balabán and others). He co-organises literary evenings, festivals and exhibitions in Ostrava (e. g. – with Ivan Motýl – Literární harendy, 1992 – 1994 which were partly improvised literature, text-appeal and happening evenings[1]); he also acts in the cabaret of Jiří Surůvka and played Jesus in the O tom slavném zmrtvýchvstání passion play by Tomáš Vůjtek.

His twin brother Pavel is a literary critic. Petr Hruška lives with his partner Yvetta Ellerová (a singer and composer in the groups Norská trojka, and Complotto) and their three children in Ostrava. His son František is also a poet who published his debut book, Převážná doba, in 2021.[2]

Works

Petr Hruška says: "Poetry is not a decoration of life". According to him, poetry must "excite, disturb, amaze, surprise, unsettle the reader, demolish the existing aesthetic satisfactions and create new ones." Described as a poet of unrest and hidden dangers in everyday life, he confronts readers with a world seemingly familiar, and yet surprising in its reality. Casual situations are the source of a subtle tension and deep, though at first glance hardly noticeable meaning. He said in an interview: "I think that real grace and gracefulness appear only where all the gloominess, depression, and weariness of life, all the 'loneliness of the relationship' are somehow present as well. Only in the midst of that can a thin thread of light shine, a thin thread, which however contains all the fateful nearness that two people are capable of."[3]

About Hruška's work, poet Ivan Wernisch wrote: "You manage to write poetry without unavailing things, that is, without lyrical babbling."[4] He is one of the most praised Czech poets of the post-1989 era.[5] [6] Blue Diode Press wrote about his poems that they "uncover realities we may have sensed but have never before found as precisely and unsettlingly articulated."[7]

He publishes poetry in many magazines (Host, Tvar, Revolver Revue, Literární noviny, Souvislosti, Weles etc.), writes reviews for Tvar and the Czech Radio Vltava, and writes academic articles (for Host, Tvar, Slovenská literatúra, Protimluv, Obrácená strana měsíce etc.) His poems have been translated into English, French, German, Slovenian, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Croatian etc. In 1998 he was awarded the Dresdner Lyrikpreis[8] and in 2009 the Jan Skácel Award. His poetry collection Darmata won the Czech State Award for Literature in 2013.[9] In Italy he won the Premio Piero Ciampi 2014. He was the editor of the Collected Works of Jan Balabán and Selected Poems by Ivan Martin Jirous; he also compiled an anthology of 20th-century Czech poetry for a Slovenian edition. He is the holder of the Jantar Prize (2019) for the book Nikde není řečeno and the Magnesia Litera Award for Poetry (2023) for the book Spatřil jsem svou tvář.

Poetry books

Prose

Poetry books abroad

Work in anthologies (selection)

Czech:

Foreign:

Academic monographs

Academic articles (selection)

Theatre and television

CD

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Radio Praha - Petr Hruška: Poezie není zdobení života . Radio.cz . 27 May 2007. 2016-05-18.
  2. https://www.vetrnemlyny.cz/frantisek-hruska/a317 František Hruška
  3. Web site: Portál české literatury - Česká literatura - Autoři a díla - Profil . January 31, 2009 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20070624061927/http://www.czlit.cz/main.php?pageid=34&author_id=81 . June 24, 2007 .
  4. Zelený svetr, back cover flap
  5. Balaštík, M., Typologie nové básnické generace. Host 2, 1998, pp. 15–20
  6. Slívová, L.: Druhá polovina 90. let v české poezii 20. století se zaměřením na okruh básníků kolem časopisu Weles. Prague, Univerzita Karlova 2004. (A university thesis)
  7. https://www.bluediode.co.uk/product-page/everything-indicates-by-petr-hru%C5%A1ka Evyerything Indicates by Petr Hruška
  8. Web site: Dresdner Literaturbüro . January 31, 2009 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20090928062458/http://www.dresdner-literaturbuero.de/lyrikpreis.asp . September 28, 2009 .
  9. https://zpravy.aktualne.cz/domaci/kultura/statni-ceny-dostanou-basnik-hruska-a-prekladatel-slezak/r~48d0c85c3bf111e3bb540025900fea04/?redirected=1557431616 Státní ceny 2013

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