The František Hrubín Award for 2019 goes to Professor Vladimír Křivánek
Author: Petra Kubařová
On November 14, 2019, the poet and literary historian Vladimír Křivánek received the František Hrubín Award for best writer in Central Bohemia.
Professor Vladimír Křivánek from the Department of Czech Language and Literature of the Faculty of Education received the 2019 František Hrubín Award for his poetry collection Soul is a Strange Sparrow published by Prstek Aleš.
Soul is a Strange Sparrow is an extensive collection of miniature quatrains created over the past three decades, the first dating back to the summer of 1988, the last one written in 2018. It combines the author’s own selection of the best quatrain miniatures, whether amorous, lyrical, confessional, meditational or evocative. They are joined together by the air of melancholy, by their sense of beauty and ephemerality of human existence. The collection is dedicated to the poet Jan Skácel, whose quatrains inspired the author to adopt this difficult poetic form, and is accompanied by an epilogue from eminent literary historian and critic Jiří Opelík. The poems are refined, subtle and reticent, and are best suited for readers who are willing to devote their time and concentration and to return and reread individual poems or poetic cycles. The multilayer collection abounds in meanings and motifs that cannot be contained and comprehended through a single reading. The minimalistic concept pays homage to two masters of quatrain poetry – Jan Skácel and the Tang Dynasty poet Li Po.
