Oleh Kotsarev

Oleh Kotsarev was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine, in 1981. His main literary experience is the writing of poems, mostly metaphoric free verses with a strong plot. For his poems he received prizes in Ukraine. Some of his texts were published in more than 10 foreign languages (including Czech). Also, he wrote many absurd short stories. Recently he‘s just finished the novel „People in the Nests“ concentrated on the ironical and sentimental private history of one family in 19th and 20th century. His essays and articles about literature and culture are published in Ukrainian media. He started translating works of Polish poetry in 2007 and then translated poems and essays from Polish, Russian and Belarusian. During the years 2013–2016 he translated poems of Ivan Wernisch, Petr Borkovec and Marie Iljašenko from Czech into Ukrainian in cooperation with the student of Czech Iryna Zabijaka.

During his residency in Prague he planned to work, among other things, on writing a collection of poems related to the cities situated on the 50th parallel north: Kharkiv, Krakow, Prague and Meinz and concentrating on poems coloured by the spirit of Prague. Further, he wanted to prepare an essay about Vasyl Khmeliuk, Ukrainian avante-guarde poet and artist who lived in Prague in the 1920s and wrote an episode to a novel “Mask of the Cat” with the events in Prague (the leitmotiv is the passion of a younger man to an older women in the interior of the years 2000–2010th.

During his residency stay in Prague, Oleh Kocarev worked on his new poetic album Chaplin Square, which was published as an e-book. The bilingual edition of his verses translated by Miroslav Tomek reflects impressions of places he visited and met during his stay in Prague. The collection of poems by Oleha Kocarev was published by the Municipal Library of Prague and can be downloaded and viewed online.

Resident's Mes­sage

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