Culture Reset: our EU base - Literature Across Frontiers

Culture Reset is an organisation with a European and international outlook based in Prague and established under Czech law to continue the activities of Literature Across Frontiers (LAF) in the European Union post-Brexit. As a new organisation, Culture Reset benefits from LAF’s extensive expertise and experience in working across Europe and beyond with collaborative literary projects focused on networking, capacity building, professional development and research contributing to arts and culture policy debate, and providing international opportunities for literary professionals and in particular for emerging writers, translators and organisers.

Projects

Culture Reset is currently building its portfolio of projects managed from the Prague base, including Czech Scottish Poetry Connections, Ulysses Shelter and Counterpoint:narrating migration form the periphery as centre.

Ulysses Shelter

The third cycle of the Ulysses Shelter project providing residency opportunities for emerging writers and translators started in 2022 and will run until 2025 with three residency cycles. Culture Reset selects the authors or translators from the Czech Republic and received authors, in this case poets, selected by our partners.

Czech writers selected to participate in the project

The Czech authors were selected in 2022 by a panel consisting of Alexandra Büchler, representing Culture Reset and Literature Across Frontiers, poet and translator Petr Borkovec and translator and president of the Czech Literary Translators Association Anežka Charvátová. The selected authors were are Jan Škrob and Marek Torčík. Jan travelled to the Croatian island of Mljet where he worked on a new collection of poems exploring imagery and contemporary mythologies of sea and seafaring, while Marek took up his residency in Caernarfon, Wales, working on his second novel and connecting with the local bilingual literary scene.

In 2023, a panel consisting of Alexandra Büchler, representing Culture Reset and Literature Across Frontiers, poet and former chair of the Writers’ Association Jitka Bret Srbová and deputy chair of the Literary Translators Association Lukáš Novák selected prose writers Kristina Nesvedová and Sára Vybíralová. Kristina will travel to Caernarfon, Wales in May 2024 and Sára will spend time in Ljubljana in summer 2024.

Kristina Nesvedová is a Czech author of children´s books. After her studies in French and Portuguese philology at Charles University, she started working as a book editor. For more than ten years, she has been preparing books by Czech and foreign authors for publication. Her first novel for children Kdo spí ve spíži (Who Sleeps in the Pantry, Host, 2023) conjures up an imaginary world where little vegetable creatures from a pantry basket come alive and experience adventures in their search for kin and friends. Kristina lives in South Bohemia with her family and two cats, and when she is not helping others bring their books into the world, she is writing her own stories and trying to improve her skills as a storyteller.

Sára Vybíralová (1986) is a writer, translator from French, and editor. Born in Brno, she studied French and History at the Charles University in Prague. Her collection of short stories Spoušť (Havoc, Host Publishing, 2015) received the Jiří Orten Award for debut by authors under thirty. She is currently writing her second collection and works at the Czech Literary Centre where she is responsible for collaboration with francophone countries. She has translated a number of works by French authors such as Édouard Levé, Édouard Louis, Leïla Slimani, Hervé Le Tellier, Jérôme Baschet, Jérôme Collin and Victor Pouchet.

Jan Škrob (1988 Prague) is a Czech poet and translator living in Prague. His three poetry collections are Pod dlažbou (Under the Pavement, 2016), Reál (Reality, 2018) and Země slunce (The Land of the Sun, 2021). German translations of selected poems by Martina Lisa and Jana Krötzsch appeared under the title off topic (hochroth, 2020), and he has contributed to a number of anthologies at home and abroad. Škrob performed at several international events and festivals, including Novotvar (Bratislava, 2018), Transpoesie (Brussels, 2019) or Patras World Poetry Festival (Patras, 2022). He is a member of the Czech Writers Association (Asociace spisovatelů) and the Union of Independent Authors (Svaz nezávislých autorů). He is currently working on his fourth poetry collection exploring imagery, themes and contemporary mythologies of sea and seafaring. (Photo: Maria Schormová)

Marek Torčík is a poet, novelist and cultural journalist living in Prague. He holds an MA in Anglophone literatures and cultures from Charles University in Prague, and his debut poetry collection Rhizomy (Rhizomes) was published in 2016. His forthcoming novel Rozložíš paměť (Memory Burn), to be released in 2023. deals with the aftermath of trauma and the way memory shapes who we are and how we perceive others. He is currently working on his second novel, set in secluded parts of northern Moravia where history and myths return as reflections of current times. (Photo: Barbora Maršíček-Votavová)