Marie Iljašenko was born in Kyiv into a Ukrainian-Polish-Czech family. In 1992, she moved with her parents to the Broumov region. She has published the poetry collections Osip míří na jih (2014), Sv. Outdoor (2019), and Zvířata přicházejí do města (2025). Her poems have been translated into a dozen languages and nominated for several awards. She is the recipient of the Tom Stoppard Prize for the best Czech-language essay (2023). She works as an editor in publishing and translates from Polish and Ukrainian.
Marie Iljašenko, in her collection “Sv. Outdoor”, travels to both near and distant lands while remaining in Žižkov, where a curd-cheese Antarctica meets a new continent and climate anxiety. Her poems reference the Odyssey, they journey – and at the same time raise questions about where home is and whether it is possible to put down roots. The book is composed of many delicate and often seemingly contradictory threads, from which the author has woven a multilayered statement.
