Peter Repka: Breath from the Top of the Lungs
– Slovakia
Born in 1944 in Bratislava. After graduating from the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, he worked as an editor of the Mladá fronta magazine until 1970. In 1973, he moved to Germany where he is engaged in business activities. Together with I. Laučík and I. Štrpka, he belongs to the poetic group Lone Runners. After the verses published in magazines, he made his debut in the almac of young poetry with Dúfam, že nevyrušujem, Eva… [I hope I’m not interrupting, Eva…] (1963). Author of the poetry collections Sliepka v katedrále [Hen in the Cathedal] (1969), Že-lez-ni-ce [Ra-il-way] (1992), Priateľka púšť [My Girlfriend the Desert] (1996), Karneval v kláštore [Carnival in the Monastery] (2002) or Relikvie Anjelov [Relics of Angels] (2006); reportage production Vstaň a choď [Get Up and Go] (1998). A selection of his pre-revolutionary work was published in 2005 under the title Básne [Poems]. The book Chvála zápisníku [Praise the Notebook] (2011) contains genre-unlisted notebook notes, glosses, observations, postcards, reports and various other texts. As a novelist, he introduced himself with a collection of memoir short stories Spätné zrkadlo [Rear Mirror] (2012). “Sprint to the limit. Breath from the top of the lungs. Such are Peter’s touches with the life that is given to us to formulate, to shape,” Ivan Štrpka.