Radovan Brenkus

Radovan Brenkus (born 30 January 1974, Bardejov) is a Slovak writer, translator and critic.

Biography The author finished the study at Science faculty of P. J. Šafárik University, in mathematics and physics. He worked as a teacher in Košice, later as a specialist worker at the Institute of Experimental Physics of Slovak Academy of Sciences. He publishes in journals at home and abroad. Slovak Radio broadcast a lot of his works, which have been published in international anthologies. He translates works from Polish and occasionally undertakes literary criticism, writing a critical studies and essays. The author works in publishing house Pectus in Košice, which was founded in 2006.

Creation Brenkus is a continuator of literary modernism. In the field of poetry, he observes, analyses and decrypts the chaotic tired world, denounces the prevailing moral circumstances, the differences in its perception from without and within. The inspiratory sources are destructive emptiness, nothingness, limiting pseudo-being. By a symbology of pessimism and decadence, he shows the loneliness of the individual, his more worsening condition and uncertain future.

The motive of his prose is a search for the meaning of existence, awareness of transience, death. Among other things, Brenkus writes in neo-romantic style, as well as criticizes existentialism and the civilization progress which forces a human to find his own survival instinct. Surrealistic characters in author's stories are torn between the ideal and the real, and disturb an accepted order. Through expressive and mystical symbolism, dramatic and grotesque scenes, Brenkus displays rebellion against elitism and decline of contemporary society. He provides a space for catharsis in the condensed and equally distinctive characteristics of the situations and characters.

Works

Poetry

1997 – March of the Dead 2002 – Requiem in the Dust 2005 – Romance with a will-o'-the-wisp 2009 – Smoke from the Realm of Shadows 2015 – Dreaming with a Beast (2017, in Polish)

Prose

2005 – Hell Returns (2013, in Polish), short-story collection

Translations

2008 – Zbigniew Domino: Polish Siberiada 2009 – Rafał Wojaczek: Letters for Dead Man 2010 – Marta Świderska-Pelinko: Taste of Wandering and Eden 2017 – Marta Świderska-Pelinko: Where the Violin Cries 2020 – Janusz Korczak: Children of the Street 2021 – Aldona Borowicz: Stained Glasses in Memory 2023 – Maria Konopnicka: Under the Law 2024 – Marek Wawrzkiewicz: Little Light 2025 – Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer: Abyss