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in this issue
The Czech Poets' Guide to Survival
Jáchym TopolJáchym Topol is convinced that the post-89 period is one of the greatest eras ever for Czech poets. 'The poet has warm clothing, fuel and food, no one's impaling him or locking him up. And no one's bugging him to serve the nation, like at the time of the National Revival in the last century, or during the Russian occupation. If there's no interest in him, that's his problem,' he adds confidently. Today, at the age of thirty-six, Topol is studying ethnography at Charles University, but he has no plans to work in the field when he graduates. In fact he isn't thinking of any kind of regular employment. 'I've worked as a stoker, a porter, editor-in-chief of Revolver Revue and a reporter for Respekt. As the Italian poet Cesare Pavese says: 'Working is tiring'. Literary stipendia - like the one that he last got from a German publisher - he regards as useful, but not for creativity. 'When the conditions are right, I become a layabout,' he says.
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