Thursday, October 8, 2026, 7:30 p.m.
Reading and discussion with poet Petr Hruška
and his translator Martina Lisa
Moderator: Dirk Hülstrunk
An event as part of the Frankfurt Book Fair’s “Guest of Honor: Czech Republic” program
Bilingual: German-Czech
Galerie Be Poet Offspace
Langenhainer Straße 26, 60326 Frankfurt
Free admission; doors open at 7:00 p.m.
Petr Hruška is one of the Czech Republic’s most outstanding poets. His poetry has been honored with numerous Czech and international awards, including the Magnesia Litera Prize for his latest poetry collection *Spatřil jsem svou tvář* (2022), the German edition of which, *Und ich sah mein Gesicht*, translated by Martina Lisa, will be presented at the Book Fair.
On September 8, 1522, after three years at sea, the last battered ship of Magellan’s great fleet, with eighteen men remaining, reached Seville. Five hundred years later, Petr Hruška explores this spectacular first circumnavigation of the globe, which was also a colonial enterprise. Inspired by Antonio Pigafetta, who accompanied Magellan and recorded his experiences in a travelogue, Petr Hruška takes us on a fictional, poetic sea voyage. His concise, unadorned poems are at times concrete, at other times dissolving fixed references to time and space. The longer the expedition lasts, the more alien the people and the world become,
