Please join the East Central European Center and the Harriman Institute for a poetry reading and discussion with Petr Hruška. Moderated by Christopher Harwood.

Petr Hruška (b. 1964) is a Czech poet and literary historian who lives in Ostrava. His poetry has won numerous national and international awards, including the Czech State Award for Literature, in recognition of his collection Darmata (To No Travail, 2012), and the Magnesia Litera, the most prestigious annual literary award in the Czech Republic, for his newest collection, Spatřil jsem svou tvář (I Caught Sight of My Face, 2022), an extended meditation on Magellan’s voyage around the world. He writes screenplays, publishes a literary magazine, co-organizes literary events and festivals, and participates in civic initiatives for environmental causes and the preservation of cultural monuments in his region. Hruška also writes short stories, columns, and essays, many of which are collected in V závalu (Cave-In, 2020). He works at the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague, specializing in poetry from the twentieth century to the present, and he is the author of scholarly articles and books on Czech poetry. Collections of Hruška’s poetry have been published in English, French, German, Polish, Italian, Hungarian, Romanian, and Croatian translation.