Briefly about author

Dušan Dušek enriched Slovak literature by basing his poetics on a detail charged with his autobiography. This made his work serve as a counterpoint to official literature. Dušek became one of the best Slovak short story writers. He is a poetic realist who creates a complex mosaic from details that speak of the beauty and sadness of life. He has a sensuous vision and a perception of reality that is complimented by the perception of a child. That helps him to create gentle pictures of home reflecting the basic ethical value of human life. The world of his prose is filled with interesting little characters. Added to his work are the author`s childhood experiences, humour, irony, precisely built metaphor with a concrete narrative line, imagination and a fine psychological drawing. In precise prosaic form, his stories feature the coexistence of reality with imagination, irrationality and mystery. Dušek penetrates the surface of relationships, situations and problems but does not solve them, merely evokes them in an original manner. Beside childhood, another frequent topic is the relationship between generations. He uses the topic to deal critically with complex social and political issues. In the last collection of stories, Thermometer, apart from all the standard preoccupations of the author, he features his own political position concerning the realities of the totalitarian regime and the events following the Velvet Revolution of 1989.

Briefly about production

prose:
The Roof of a House (Strecha domu, 1972, short stories), Eyes and Eyesight (Oči
a zrak, 1975, short stories), A Place Near the Heart (Pozícia pri srdci, 1982, short stories), Calendar (Kalendár, 1983, short stories), Thimble (Náprstok, 1985, short stories), Merciful Time (Milosrdný čas, 1992, short stories), A Suitcase for Dreams (Kufor na sny, 1993, short stories), Thermometer (Teplomer, 1996, short stories),
On Foot to Heaven (Pešo do neba, 2000), A Bird Standing on One Leg (Vták na jednej nohe, 2003), Cold Hands (Zima na ruky, 2006), A Simple Sentence on Love (Holá veta o láske, 2010)

poetry:
Draughts /or Sips/ (Dúšky, 1990), Story Without a Story (Príbeh bez príbehu, 1994)

children's books:
The Oldest of All the Sparrows (Najstarší zo všetkých vrabcov, 1976), Little Chirper (Pištáčik, 1980), The True Story of Paco (Pravdivý príbeh o Pačovi, 1980), A Day After
a Long Rain Can Be Fragrant (Deň po dlhom daždi býva voňavý, 1984), Little Chirper Gets Married (Pišťáčik sa žení, 1985), Grandma on the Ladder (Babka na rebríku, 1987), The Door to a Keyhole (Dvere do kľúčovej dierky, 1987)

film and television scripts and radio plays:
Rose Dreams (Ružové sny, 1976), I Love, You Love (Ja milujem, ty miluješ, 1980), Jay Birds on Mind (Sojky v hlave, 1983), Train Men (Vlakári, 1988), Flies in Winter (Muchy v zime, 1992, radio play)

WORKS TRANSLATED
Translations of Dušek`s prose and books for children appeared abroad in many literary magazines and anthologies.
A Day After a Long Rain Can Be Fragrant (1987 German, Bulgarian, 1988 Russian)
Calendar (1985 Hungarian)
Vanilla - Smoke (1987 Hungarian)
Little Chirper Gets Married (1988 Russian)
Grandma on the Ladder (1989 German, Ukrainian)
The Door to a Keyhole (1992 Polish)

Walking to Heaven (2003 German)

Extracts from prose works (literary journal Tratti, 2011, Italian)

Biography for author

Born 4 January 1946 in Gbelce. He spent his youth in the Záhorie region (Western Slovakia) and in Piešťany. Dušek studied geology and chemistry at Comenius University in Bratislava and graduated in 1970. Then he worked as an editor in the periodicals Smena, Tip, Kamarát, and in the literary monthly Slovenské pohľady. From 1979 he has been a professional writer. At present Dušek teaches at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava.

about author

Dušek transforms the complexity of his experience into a prosaic form, using a few characteristic compositional and stylistic devices. Most frequently, he makes the meaning of a narrated story or relationships and conflicts "dark" and "mysterious". The reader finds himself in position of an accidental observer or witness to an event or conversation. The indeterminate significance and meaning of the prose is in sharp contrast with the clear and depiction of objects and their details, their natural surroundings, the action, and the appearance of the characters.

Dušek`s carefully captured microworld reflects his admiration of seemingly ordinary things that receive a new significance due to unusual vision or surprising illumination. His courage to create in a period of cool pragmatic utilitarian relationships helped the writer avoid the conventional and even fashion nostalgia the characters feel for the demise of their forefathers world.

Dušek delivers to society mature prose art based on a deep knowledge of village man and the social context wherein this man lives. Dušek does not rely only on the experience and knowledge that is otherwise the basis of real art, but rather he amplifies the experience with the help of contemporary means of expression. He writes from the point of view of today and thus expands the spectrum of contemporary prose.

Dušek`s contribution to Slovak fiction of the last thirty years consists above all in his original and imaginatively rich rewriting of mundane, everyday themes. Originating in the readers`s mind, they are on the dividing line between dream and reality, finding and losing, life and death. These are themes that always implicitly accompany an aesthetic survey of the movable boundaries between a story and its hidden, unarticulated or semi-articulated meaning. Dušek`s short stories and scriptwriting are tied not only to the thematic but also to the ideological "minimal art," the interest in peripherally uncensored children`s, young people`s, as well as senior`s and very old people`s consciousness. (...) The leitmotif of his numerous books for adults and children is the author`s apostrophe of human sympathy and empathy and positive partnering.

Author about himself

These are the big and little stories I received as a gift. They entered my ear and wondered around my body together with the pictures of people and the country until they turned to ink in my ballpoint pen.

Sample

A STRAWFLOWER