Prague, July 24 (CTK) – Marketa Malisova is leaving as the Prague-seated Franz Kafka Centre director after 16 years in the post, she told CTK to on Tuesday, citing personal reasons, mainly her plan to focus on her own work as an author and film maker and on the legacy of her father, poet and lyricist Vaclav Fischer.
Furthermore, she plans to write a book of memoirs about the lateCzech-Jewish author Arnost Lustig (1926-2011), she said.
Malisova will be replaced at the Franz Kafka Centre head by Eva Anderova as of September 1.
The Franz Kafka Society was established in 1990 with the aim to revive the tradition that gave birth to the unique phenomenon of the Prague German literature and people’s awareness of the importance of the cultural plurality of the Central European region, where Czechs, Germans and Jews lived together for long centuries.
Prague-born Jewish writer Franz Kafka’s name is a symbol of this tradition.
Malisova joined the Franz Kafka Centre in 1998 as head of the Franz Kafka Gallery situated in Prague’s Old Town Square.
In February 2002, she became the executive and director of the Franz Kafka Centre.
With Malisova at its head, the centre acquired new headquarters in the centre of Prague, renewed its bookshop and issued a number of books, in addition to organising lectures, seminars and discussion meetings.
“We took part in the Expo 2010 [world exhibition] in Shanghai, projects in Argentina, Spain, Egypt, South Korea and many other countries…We became a world-renowned institution. We achieved all this in cooperation with partners, our state and private supporters, the society’s board and my colleagues. I would like to thank them all for it,” Malisova said, adding that she continues to be the Society’s member.
Malisova turned 60 last year. A graduate from Charles University’s Faculty of Sciences, she has worked in film since 1985, herself making documentary films as of the mid-1990s. She has published numerous articles about Kafka and interviews with Lustig, with whom she also cooperated on 13 books, including two as a co-author. She published two novels by Lustig in a Czech-English-Hebrew version.
