Marek Šindelka: Memory, a hand, Scriabin

Born in 1984 in Polička. He studied cultural studies at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, and screenwriting at FAMU. He made his debut as a poet with Strychnin a jiné básně (Strychnine and Other Poems, 2005), for which he received the Jiří Orten Prize in 2006. This was followed by the novel Chyba (Error, 2008), the short story collections Zůstaňte s námi (Stay with Us, 2011; Magnesia Litera for Prose 2012) and Mapa Anny (Anna’s Map, 2014), and the novella Únava materiálu (Material Fatigue, 2016; Magnesia Litera for Prose 2017). His latest novel Systémy něhy (Systems of Tenderness, 2026) is conceived as a large contrapuntal poem, in which the main roles alternate between Ada, a neurotic pianist, her father’s crippled hand, the mystical music of Alexander Scriabin,and last but not least, deceptive, errant memory.