Magdaléna Platzová: Inward, Direct, Intuitive
–Czechia
Born 1972 in Prague. Author of children's books and plays, publicist, translator, novelist. She studied philosophy at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University. She worked as an assistant to director Petr Lébel at the Divadlo Na Zábradlí [Theatre on the Balustrade] and as an editor of the weekly Literární noviny [Literary Newspapers]. She has published nine books, including Sůl, ovce a kamení [Salt, Sheep and Stones] (2003), Anarchista [Anarchist] (2013), Máme holý ruce [We Have Bare Hands] (2019) and Život po Kafkovi [Life after Kafka] (2022). In the last one, she examines the famous writer's relationship with his dear Felice Bauer. "I remember exactly when I came to Felice," she said in an interview. "It was during my second fall in New York that I was preparing a course on Kafka, which I was to teach in the winter semester. I'm not a literary scientist, my approach to Kafka has always been very inward, direct, intuitive."