Beyond Kafka (stories about Prague and the golden age of Czechoslovakia)

Time flies by and swirls in the twists of human fates. It leaves its marks on building walls, its footprints on cobblestones, and its traces in our hearts. The city of Prague, its stories and famous inhabitants,  monarch Charles IV, presidents Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and Václav Havel or author Franz Kafka, who died 100 years ago. This talk presented captivating stories about Prague, Kafka and Czechoslovakia in the 1920´s through the books of acclaimed Czech author Renáta Fučíková.

 

 

Originally an artist and illustrator, Renáta Fučíková has gradually devoted more time to writing books. She has won many awards, including 12 Golden Ribbons, first prize at the Biennial of Illustration in Tehran in 1997, and the Grand Prix at the Biennial of Illustrations in Zagreb, Croatia in 2018. She was nominated for the Czech literature award Magnesia Litera as well as for the prestigious Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award three times. Her magnum opus is a five-hundred-page illustrated History of Europe, in collaboration with author Daniela Krolupperová. The book was three years in the making and was published in 2011. Fučíková has also worked with the Czech postal service, which has produced 12 of her stamp designs. She has successuly collaborated with German famous porcelain maker Rosenthal/Hutschenreuter since 2019. She is the author of their globally popular Christmas collection.

 

Fučíková teaches students of Didactic Illustration at the Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, Czech Republic. She is an Artistic director of Jiří Trnka International Symposium, event organized annually in Pilsen.