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Jáchym Topol

Jáchym Topol (b. 1962), like most Czech authors of his generation, wrote poetry for years before turning to prose. His first two collections of poems were both published in samizdat (i.e., unofficially and illegally), in 1985 and 1988. The poems here come from V úterý bude válka (Tuesday Will Be War, 1992), his first 'aboveground' appearance in print and his last poetry outing prior to his prose debut, Výlet k nádražní hale (A Trip to the Train Station, 1993). Topol’s verse, with its lack of rhyme and meter, may remind English speakers of the Beats. Topol himself, however, cites his chief poetic influences as Ivan Jirous, aka 'Magor', poet, essayist, and guru of the Czech underground in the 1970s and 1980s; Egon Bondy, a metaphysical philosopher and surrealist poet whose verses served as lyrics for the first album by the Plastic People of the Universe; and Jiří Kolář of Skupina 42 (Group 42), a 1940s association of Czech avant-garde poets and painters inspired by the city and the industrial periphery. Thematically, the three selections here reflect several of Topol’s abiding interests and influences, visible in his novels as well: Native Americans, World War II atrocities, and the spy and adventure stories he devoured as a boy.



Articles Available Online


Tuesday Will Be War

poetry

January 2014

Jáchym Topol

TR. Alex Zucker

poetry

January 2014

Jáchym Topol (b. 1962), like most Czech authors of his generation, wrote poetry for years before turning to prose. His first two collections of...

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feature

Issue No. 16

Scroll, Skim, Stare

Orit Gat

feature

Issue No. 16

1.   This is an essay about contemporary art that includes no examples. It includes no examples because its...

Interview

January 2016

Interview with Marlene van Niekerk

Jan Steyn

Interview

January 2016

Marlene Van Niekerk is the foremost Afrikaans writer of her generation. She is a renowned poet, scholar, critic, and...

fiction

August 2013

How to Be an American

Will Heinrich

fiction

August 2013

Begin with a man on the beach. The sea is strangely iridescent, lighter in its lights and blacker in...

 

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