On May 1st, the scholarship stays within the scope of the Visegrad Literary Residences 2017 programme started. Four scholarship holders came to Kraków to pursue their literary and artistic projects here. In the spring edition, Villa Decius hosts Miloš Doležal – czech poet, prose writer, Aleksandra Zielińska – polish novelist and short story writer, Gábor Schein – hungarian poet and writer and Michal Tallo – poet and film critic from Slovakia.
Miloš Doležal (1970, CZ) – poet, prose writer, editor, radio dramaturge. He graduated from the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Charles University in Prague. Since 1998 he is working as a literary editor and dramaturge of radio Český Rozhlas Praha – arts station Vltava. His poems and feuilletons were published in Polish literary periodicals (Topos, Almanach prowincjonalny, Gość Niedzielny, Tygodnik Powszechny etc.). His collection of poems “Gmina” was published by Czarne in 2004. His poems and short stories were translated to French, German, Polish, English, Greek, Croatian and Italian. He is the author of many radio documents about World War II era and communistic repression of the 50s, literary radio programs, portraits and travelogue cycles. He wrote a monograph about the Czech martyr of the communistic regime, the priest Josef Toufar entitled “Jako Bychom Dnes Zemřít Měli”, which won the prize of The Book of the year 2012 awarded by Lidové noviny and was then published in Italy (Itaca, 2015). He lives in Prague and in Vysočina.
Aleksandra Zielińska (1989, PL) – novelist and short story writer. A graduate of the Jagiellonian University, a student of the Faculty of Art at the Pedagogical University of Cracow, participant of the screenwriting course ADAPTATION for professionals at the Warsaw Film School. The author of two novels: “Alice’s Evidence” (2014, nominated for Conrad Award for best debut novel) and “Bura and frenzy” (2016). Both novels were published in Archipelagi Series, Publishing House W.A.B., GW Foksal. Winner of the Creative Scholarship of Cracow in 2015 in the category of literature. Participant of drama writing workshops at the Juliusz Słowacki Theatre. Member of writing section of Munk Studio.
Gábor Schein (1969, HU) – poet and writer. Gábor Schein has published many volumes of poetry, four novels, plays and essays on literature and politics. His works have received grants and awards in Hungary and abroad and been translated into many languages. Recent literary publications: “Éjszaka, utazás” [Night, Journey] (poems) 2013; “Esernyők a Kossuth téren” [Umbrellas at the Kossuth square] (political essays); 2014 “Svéd” [Swedish] (novel) 2015; “Üdvözlet a kontinens belsejéből” [Greetings from the Middle of the Continent] (poems) 2017.
Michal Tallo (SK) – poet and film critic. Currently, he is a first-year PhD student at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava while working as a contributing editor of Vlna – magazine for contemporary art and culture, a head programmer at the KLAP cinema in Bratislava and running Medziriadky – a project for emerging young writers. Apart from that, he also regularly hosts literature readings and discussions about literature, film and art in Bratislava and other Slovak cities and contributes poems, film reviews and articles into various Slovak and Czech magazines. His first poetry collection “Antimita” was published in 2016.