Petr Král (4 September 1941 – 17 June 2020[1]) was aCzechwriter, initially influenced by surrealism.
Král was born inPrague. Having graduated fromFAMU, he worked as an editor in the Orbis publishing house, where he focused on a line of books aboutfilm and filmmakers. In 1968, he immigrated toFrance where he worked in agallery, a photo shop, as a teacher,interpreter,translator,screenplay author, reviewer and so on. In 1984 he lived inQuébec. From 1990 to 1991 he was a cultural counsellor at the Czechembassy in Paris. He translated from and intoFrench (mainly modern poetry). He edited several anthologies. Since April 2006, he resided in Prague.
Petr Král started writing under the influence ofsurrealism, but from the 1970s, his books revealed that he felt a lack of fulfilment from the surrealist method. He wrote about eternal longing which is being nourished by itself, and perhaps leads to consuming the person who yearns. Král's emblematic words can be: "We don't die, it's much worse: we vanish. In other words, we never were. There is no reality."[2]
