»A young poet of still perfection« in the words of Die Zeit. Petr Borkovec won the coveted Jiri-Orten poetry prize at the age of twenty-five for the poetry volume Ochoz [dealings]. In 2002 he received the Norbert C. Kaser prize for the Polni Prace [fieldwork] collection and also the Hubert Burda prize for young poetry. He assumed the fifth lectureship on Literature in Middle Europe at Dresden University during the summer semester of 2003.
In 2004, »Edition Korrespondenzen« published the bilingual volume »Nadelbuch« (»Needle-Book«). It is an intimate diary which subtly approaches the world of mothers and grandmothers by describing daily objects, private spaces and river landscapes. Simultaneously »Nadelbuch« is a cipher for the poet’s artistry. Borkovec’s book tries in two ways not to break the chain: that of one’s own family and that of poetic predecessors.
