Coming to the Prague Summer Program this year, I vaguely anticipated a kind of transformative experience and nearly ducked the blow by having my post-pandemic travel plans thwarted at one point. But then I made it, and what happened was the reverse of Jean-Marc’s pastoral fantasy in Identity by Milan Kundera: instead of being the poet or the writer among imaginary mute beasts, I saw fragments of what I was doing reflected in the work of the other participants as nude as myself in their attempts to communicate the bare unprocessed core of the unspeakable. This mirroring confusion, the darker female version of the fantasy entertained by Chantal, prevailed throughout workshops and readings until I was called out by my name on the last day and found that I was still me and I still spoke my heart, but in a less jarring and more comprehensible way, because the gap between what I thought I was doing and what I was really doing has flashed and waned.

I do feel the three weeks I spent with the PSP after being granted the Václav Havel demi-fellowship were three solid chapters on my way to a professional writer’s career. Even though I have no doubt I will want to review them and edit, the feeling that they are there is comforting. I thoroughly enjoyed the workshops by Mark and Maya Slouka. There I learnt that the word “workshop” that I have known as a noun is a verb. I feel deeply indebted to Richard Katrovas, who in a couple of face-to-face conferences gave me a year’s worth feedback and has managed to make me angry in the right way. I’d been also tacitly admiring all the effort Ema Katrovas put into making things work on all levels. So, in line with a few simple things I have acquired here in Prague such as a taste for mineral water, renewed appreciation of good public transport and strive for clarity, I want to say thank you.

Jenya Zvonareva, 2021