Poetry devoted to migration and exile is a relatively new phenomenon in Czech poetry, and the question of whether one can speak of ‘intercultural literature’ as in Western literatures remains open. It encompasses multilingualism and the experience of writing outside one’s mother tongue, cultural code-switching, and an exploration of a place’s collective cultural memory. A place is not merely a backdrop for the poetic process, but its ontological starting point. Moreover, its trajectory need not be directed solely horizontally between specific places – as is typically the case with the pilgrim, the nomad, the flâneur or the migrant – but also vertically, into deeper layers of memory, thereby contributing to the processing of historical traumas.

Marie Iljašenko, Zofia Bałdyga, Sufian Massalema. Moderation: Jan Heller, reading: Armin Nufer