KRIMINACHT 2025 Litomyšl

Visit the fifth Kriminacht in Litomyšl and get to know contemporary authors of Czech detective fiction – Veronika Bálková, Jana Jašová, Petr Sagitario and Michal Sýkora.

The evening reading series is designed as a journey through Litomyšl. Meetings with authors will take place in four places in the centre of Litomyšl. Visitors can choose to attend only one reading or all four.

18:00 City Picture Gallery (Litomyšl Castle, 2nd floor) / Petr Sagitarius
19:30 Bobo Café / Jana Jašová
21:00 Litomyšl Municipal Police Yard / Veronika Bálková
22:30 Town Hall Yard / Michal Sýkora

The last reading will include the launch of a new book by Michal Sýkora called No Good News.

Veronika Bálková ( 1976)
He comes from České Budějovice, where he lives. She graduated from the Faculty of Law at Masaryk University in Brno and works as a lawyer in the state administration. She focuses on environmental law, especially nature and landscape protection. In 2024, she published her debut novel, Transition Period, which is inspired by real cases of sea eagle poisoning. It is a novel set in the South Bohemian countryside, combining a relationship storyline with detective elements.

Michal Sýkora (born 1973)
is a Czech writer and university teacher. He made his debut in 2012 with the novel The Case for the Exorcist, which launched a successful detective series featuring Commissioner Vyrova and was followed by other books Blue Shadows, It’s Not Over Yet, Five Dead Dogs and Worst Fears. Sykora’s novels became the basis for the television miniseries Detectives of the Most Holy Trinity (2015-2019), which attracted a large audience. In addition to the novels, Michal Sýkora has written, together with Petr Jarchovský, the scripts for the miniseries Live Targets ( 2019) and Background Events ( 2022) for Czech Television. Michal Sýkora is also the author of several literary publications, including monographs on Vladimir Nabokov (2002, 2004) and Philip Roth (2019). For the Moravian Theatre in Olomouc, he wrote the contemporary tragicomedy You Are Finally Home or Paper Mausoleum ( 2024). At Kriminacht he will present his latest novel No Good News ( 2025), which was written during a literary residency in Litomyšl.

Jana Jašová (born 1968)
Graduated in journalism at the Faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University. She is a successful literary translator and also devotes herself to her own literary work. She has translated more than two hundred fiction titles for children and adults from English. She won the favour of readers and critics with her first mystery book, Destroy the Name ( 2022). This was followed by the thrillers Cruel Moon (2023), which won the Magnesia Litera Prize for crime fiction, and Predatory Beasts at Large ( 2024). The author is known for the absence of detectives in her mysteries.

Petr Sagitarius (born 1966)
He is a Czech detective writer with Polish roots. He was born in Třinec, lives in Jablunkov and the Czech-Polish-Slovak tri-border is the setting of most of his books. He has worked as a teacher, cultural officer, worker, artist and journalist, and from 1998 to 2014 as mayor of Jablunkov. He is currently on disability pension. He is the author of the Trujkunt detective series featuring the popular Ostrava crime scene investigator Major Roman Saran. “Trujkunt” is a special place, and the easternmost tip of our country, where the intermingling of neighbouring languages has created an original dialect called Najem. Detective Saran is as peculiar as the region he lives in.

 

Kriminacht 2025 is moderated for you by:

Marta Bauerová, Director of the Town Library in Svitavy (Veronika Bálková)

Iva Pekníková, Director of the Litomyšl Town Library (Michal Sýkora)

Michal Sýkora, university teacher, literary theorist, dramaturg and writer (Jana Jašová)

Martina Zuzaňáková, director of the Litomyšl Town Gallery, curator and cultural manager (Petr Sagitarius)

Admission to the event is free.