Petr Král

Petr Král (September 4, 1941, Prague) is a Czech writer. Having graduated from FAMU, he worked as an editor in the Orbis publishing house, where he focused on a line of books about film and film-makers. In 1968, he emigrated to France where he worked in a gallery, a photo shop, as a teacher, interpreter, translator, screenplay author, reviewer and so on. In 1984 he lived in Québec. From 1990 to 1991 he was a cultural councillor by the Czech embassy in Paris. He translates from and to French (mainly modern poetry). He edited several anthologies. Since April 2006, he resides in Prague.

Works

Petr Král started writing under the influence of surrealism, but since 1970s, his books show the fact that being fulfilled is something that the surrealist method cannot provide him. He writes about eternal longing which is being nourished by itself, and perhaps leads to consuming the person who yearns. Král's emblematic words can be: "We don't die, it's much worse: we vanish. In other words, we never were. There is no reality." [ [http://www.czlit.cz/main.php?pageid=34&author_id=106 Czech literature] ]

* "Vlasta Burian" (with A. Král), 1969
* "Prázdno světa", 1986
* "Svědek stmívání", 1987
* "Éra živých", 1989
* "P. S." čili "Cesty do ráje", 1990
* "Právo na šedivou", 1991
* "Pocit předsálí v aixské kavárně", 1991
* "Med zatáček" čili "Dovětek k dějinám", 1992
* "Voskovec a Werich" čili "Hvězdy klobouky", 1993
* "Tyršovské přeháňky", 1994
* "Fotografie v surrealismu", 1994
* "Arsenál", 1994
* "Soukromý život", 1996
* "Pařížské sešity", 1996
* "Mramor se jí studený" (anthology of the Belgian Surrealist movement, as editor), 1996
* "Staronový kontinent", 1997
* "Chiméry a exil", 1998
* "Groteska" čili "Morálka šlehačkového dortu", 1998
* "Praha", 2000
* "Pro anděla", 2000
* "Základní pojmy", 2002
* "Anthologie de la poésie tchèque contemporaine", 2002 (as editor, published in France by Gallimard)
* "Bar Příroda" čili "Budoucnost 5 km", 2004
* "Masiv a trhliny", 2004
* "Přesuny", 2005
* "Arco a jiné prózy", 2005
* "Hm" čili "Míra omylu", 2006
* "Úniky a návraty" (interview with Petr Král by Radim Kopáč), 2006

References and external links

* [http://www.sweb.cz/antologie/ A poem, in Czech]
* [http://www.listy.cz/archiv.php?cislo=071&clanek=010718 Poems, in Czech]