Literaturklub: Ausgebrannt mit Petr Šesták

Burnt Out by Petr Šesták is the story of a bicycle courier who makes his way through the madness of traffic every day to deliver food to customers on time. He swerves around obstacles, ducks under insults, hurls them himself and constantly thinks about the world. In the civil war of the streets, he wages an irreconcilable battle for his idea of justice and resorts to ever more extreme means. Ausgebrannt is also a text about injustice, not only on the street, but also in the world of work. About the unfair distribution of wealth and power in our society. At the same time, Ausgebrannt is a pamphlet and denounces the fetishization of the car as a symbol of progress, independence, power and the privatization of the world. All cars are allegorical.

Petr Šesták studied pedagogy at Charles University in Prague. He lived in a converted van for two years and traveled all over Europe with a photo exhibition. He published the poetic-philosophical travelogue Kočovná galerie (PaperJam, 2014), the short story collection Štvanice (Dauphin, 2015), the novel Kontinuita parku (Host, 2021), the children's book Cesta je pes (Host, 2023) and the novel pamphlet Vyhoření (Host, 2023). In 2025, he made his debut as a playwright with the play Darwin & co. which was performed by the Brno theater Husa na provázku. He currently lives mainly in Prague, runs analogue photo booths and organizes cultural events in Mikulov in South Moravia. Ausgebrannt is published in a translation by Christina Frankenberg in parasitenpresse.

Reading in German and Czech. Conversation in English with Adrian Kasnitz. German voice: Wassiliki Knithaki.