Ukrainian book club: Marie Iljašenko

This month we are reading a new collection of Viařat Prichaázi to the city of the award -winning Czech poet of Ukrainian origin Marie Iljašenko. The third collection of Marie Iljašenko (born in 1983), complemented by illustrations of Ukrainian artist Mariko Gelman, is dedicated to them. In it, foxes rest in the shadow of London's telephone booths, trout monitoring the purity of water in the Prague wastewater treatment plant and wild peas grow between the bars of the city circle. However, do not expect any idyll; At best, people ignore or are superficially dealing with their neighbors; In the worst case, they deny them the right to home. Poems talk about habitats such as streams, waste landfills, street canyons and green corridors, and traps in the form of glass surfaces, thorns, roof windows and bars. Is it possible to talk about animals and plants, or even speak their voice, and avoid simplification, instructions and anthropomorphization? At least we should try it. Urban, natural and at the same time intimate poetry about the everyday life of a pheasant, a demon of cuteness, owls, hares, philodendrons, cats and coats and coexistence with them. In 1992 she and her parents moved to the Broum region. She published two collections of poetry, Osip Míří on Jih (Host, 2014) and St. Outdoor (Host, 2019). Her poems were translated into dozens of languages ​​and nominated for several awards. She holds the Tom Stoppard Prize for the best essay written in Czech (2023). She works as a publishing editor and translates from Polish and Ukrainian. He lives in Prague with his husband Josef, Kocúra Ferenc and cat Luna.