2024-04-08 22:32:13
The poetry collections Flavedo by Vasilios Chaleplis, Dům U Orobinců authored by Ondřej Krystyník and Marek Torčík’s novel entitled Rozlóžiš kaměstí were nominated for the Jiří Orten Award.
The jury of the 37th annual award for talented authors under 30 chose from 29 submitted titles. The winner of the Orten Prize will be announced on May 15 in the Mirror Chapel of Prague’s Klementin, the organizers announced.
Author readings by proposed authors will take place on April 15 in Ostrava’s Provoz Cultural Center, on April 30 in Prague’s Božská lahvice wine bar, and on May 2 in Brno’s Café Paměti národa.
Poet Vasilios Chaleplis. | Photo: Hynek Jahoda
The other four books impressed the jury so much that, although it did not include them in the three nominees, it recommends them to readers. These are Hana Ditrichová’s book called Peacefully, On the way back I turn on hidden subtitles by Elena Pecenová, Maria Jehličková’s collection Hořím v kameni and Marto Kelbl’s book Neither girl nor boy.
Vasilios Chaleplis is among the organizers and promoters of literary life in Ostrava. He co-founded the cultural platform called Harakiri Czurakami and the international literary festival Inversion. He is also one of the authors of the book 111 must-see places in Ostrava, which maps the dynamics of life there. His poetic texts are represented in anthologies, anthologies and the first Ostrava poetry collection. The nominated collection Flavedo was published by the local publishing house Bílý Vigvam.
“The poetic texts of Vasilios Chaleplis cannot be attributed any general label, they are an exceptionally comprehensive dialogue of different poets,” stated the jury, according to which the author’s language is not encumbered by generation, tradition or mannerisms. “He managed to find a clear poetic expression that can oscillate between experience and understanding, between emotion and interpretation of the present,” said the evaluators.
Poet Ondřej Krystyník. | Photo: David Konečný
The other nominee, Ondřej Krystyník, comes from Mariánské Lázně, from where he moved to Brno to study English and has since stayed there. Since 2012, his poems appear once in a while in a literary magazine. He won the Audience Award at the 2020 Dresden Lyric Prize.
The jury nominated his poetry collection Dům U Orobinců, which was published last November by the Větrné mlýny publishing house. According to the jury, it continues the tradition of spiritual lyrics.
“Krystyník’s mature gesture does without the usual props, his poems are sovereignly shaped units, readable and mysterious, comprehensible and confused, the lyrical subject wears the mask of a student who accidentally burned the index. Ingeniously chosen language registers balance each other. Krystyník searches for God among the deities as if denied, but all the more honestly,” said the jury.
The last nominee, Marek Torčík, is a poet, writer and columnist. He comes from Přerov, lives in Prague, where he studied Anglophone literature and culture at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University.
In 2016, he published the poetry collection Rhizoma, and last year drew attention to himself with his debut novel entitled Rozložíš paměstí. According to the jury, in it he presents a strong and literary convincing narrative of a young man whose otherness runs into the prejudices and stereotypes not only of those closest to him, but also of the misunderstanding of the small-town world in which he grows up.
The nominations were decided by an expert jury, which this year consists of poets Ondřej Buddeus, Karel Škrabal, Jonáš Hájek and Libor Staněk. The jury is chaired by literary historian and critic Alena Šidáková Fialová.
Last year, Filip Klega won the Orten Prize for the underground poetry collection Andrstán.
Video: They wrote down 111 must-see places in Ostrava
“We are breaking the stereotype of the black city,” said writers Jan Dvořák and Vasilios Chaleplis on DVTV last year. | Video: Michael Rozsypal