Czech Republic

Vladimír Opatrný (born 1978) is a bookseller. He completed his studies at the Institute of Information Science and Librarianship in Prague in 2006. For several years he worked in university libraries as a specialist in electronic information resources. He started his business with an e-commerce focused on professional literature and opened a shop in the center of Jablonec nad Nisou in 2012. He organizes meetings in the bookstore focused not only on literature and he considers the store as a place in the city center where people meet, not only for buying books.

Petr A. Bilek (born 1962) is a professor of modern Czech literature and literary theory at the Charles University in Prague, and the chair of the Department of Cultural Studies at the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice. He is the author of six books on literature and culture and co-author/editor of five other books. He wrote on modern Czech poetry, literary theory, and – in the last decade – mainly on contemporary Czech prose fiction.

Ivana Myšková (born 1981) is a writer and culture journalist. She worked as a radio cultural editor of the culture radio channel Český rozhlas 3 Vltava. In 2007, she debuted with her radio play Odpoledne s liliputem (Afternoon with a Lilliputian) and in 2012, she published a novella Nícení (Incitement). In 2017, she published a collection of short stories entitled Bílá zvířata jsou velmi často hluchá (White Animals Are Very Often Deaf). Since 2018 she is member of the committee of the Czech Writers Association (member organization of the European Writers’ Council).

Pavel Mandys (born 1972) is a journalist, book critic, and organizer of the annual Magnesia Litera book award. He has written numerous book reviews as an editor of the online literary magazine iLiteratura.cz. In 2012, he published the book Prague: The City of Literature to support the city’s successful bid to become a UNESCO Creative City of Literature. He was the editor of the short stories collection Prague Noir (2018) and in 2020 he wrote a book of the crime genre in Czech literature (Dějiny české detektivky, with Michal Jareš).

Eva Klíčová (born 1977) is a literary critic, journalist and editor. She has been a member of the editorial team of Host, a Czech literary magazine, since 2012. Apart from working as an editor, she frequently collaborates with numerous media outlets and literary institutions in the Czech Republic as well as abroad. Eva Klíčová studied Czech Literature and History of Art at Masaryk University in Brno.

Vladimír Opatrný (born 1978) is a bookseller. He completed his studies at the Institute of Information Science and Librarianship in Prague in 2006. For several years he worked in university libraries as a specialist in electronic information resources. He started his business with an e-commerce focused on professional literature and opened a shop in the center of Jablonec nad Nisou in 2012. He organizes meetings in the bookstore focused not only on literature and he considers the store as a place in the city center where people meet, not only for buying books.

Pavel Mandys (born 1972) is a journalist, book critic, and organizer of the annual Magnesia Litera book award. He has written numerous book reviews as an editor of the online literary magazine iLiteratura.cz. In 2012, he published the book Prague: The City of Literature to support the city’s successful bid to become a UNESCO Creative City of Literature. He was the editor of the short stories collection Prague Noir (2018) and in 2020 he wrote a book of the crime genre in Czech literature (Dějiny české detektivky, with Michal Jareš).