Katarína Kucbelová: Step out of the Bubble
– Slovakia
She was born in Banská Bystrica in 1979. After studying screenwriting and dramaturgy at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, she devoted herself to writing poetry, which she contained in four collections of poetry. In 2020, the first three collections (Duály [Duals], Šport [Sports], Malé veľké město [Small Big City]) were published in a poetic re-edition, which notices the similarity of texts and expressions even despite the several year gap between them. She made her prosaic debut with the novel Čiepec [Headdress], where she maps her own experience with discovering a new region. She gets to know the folklore area, where she learns to sew a traditional headdress from Šumiec. Her authentic statement impressed also the jury of the book award Anasoft Litera and the novel got into the final five. The J. G. Tajovský Theater in Zvolen presented a theatrical adaptation of the Headdress, at the moment, it is being translated into Czech and Hungarian. Among other things, she works as a cultural manager and she is a co-founder of the Anasoft Litera Award.