We are thrilled to welcome award-winning young Czech novelist Marek Torčík to the T. G. Masaryk Czech School.
Torčík’s debut novel Rozložíš paměť (Memory Burn), winner of the 2024 Magnesia Litera Award for Prose, is being translated into several languages and is now coming out in English, published by CEEOL Press. 📚
Join us for a conversation and stay for refreshments and book signing. Copies of his book will be available for purchase. ✍🏻
In his debut novel, the poet and novelist Marek Torčík delves into the recesses of memory in an effort to come to terms with painful memories from his childhood. As a homosexual boy with a slight build growing up in a small industrial town, the protagonist of the story faces severe bullying at school, but his problems aren’t over once he gets home: his mother, a low-paid factory worker who has to look after her father, an alcoholic nearing the end of his life, has very little tolerance of her son’s sexual orientation. One bright spot amid the bleakness of small-town life is the friendship he strikes up with a Romany classmate, Marian, which later develops into a romantic relationship. In the novel Memory Burn, Marek Torčík not only describes people living on the fringes of society in a convincing, sophisticated and precise way but also implies that sometimes it is better to wipe the slate clean and liberate oneself from negative childhood memories.
Marek Torčík (1993) is a poet, novelist and journalist. He is originally from Přerov and now lives in Prague, where he also studied English literature and culture at Charles University. In 2016, his poetry collection Rhizomy (Rhizomes) was published. In 2018 and 2020 he was one of the ten finalists in the Czech–Slovak poetry competition Básne SK/CZ. His debut novel Rozložíš paměť (Memory Burn, 2023) won the 2024 Magnesia Litera Award and the 2024 Jiří Orten Prize. It was also chosen for the tenth Susanna Roth Award for beginner translators of Czech literature.
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