Ivan Diviš - Výstup na horu poezie – Zizler Jiří (2013)

Jiří Zizler's monograph provides an interpretation of the work of Czech poet Ivan Diviš (1924—1999) and is the first synthetic work dedicated to this significant author. The book traces Diviš from his debut 'První hudba bratřím' (1947) through the collections of the 1960s to the last verses from the end of the penultimate decade. It sees its peak in the exile trilogy 'Beránek na sněhu' (1978), 'Odchod z Čech' (1981), and 'Moje oči musely vidět' (1991). The author particularly focuses on Diviš's key themes — religious conversion and the continuous struggle for faith in God, the relationship with both beloved and hated Czechia — as well as his conception of poetry as a miraculous gift capable of addressing and changing the world. The work is based on an analysis of Diviš's language, culminating in a suggestive magic that makes him a poet in the full sense of the modern word and presents him as a master of great contradictions and expressive steepness. Ivan Diviš emerges from Zizler's monograph as the creator of a unique and unmistakable poetic world, whose purpose is the search for hope and a passionate protest against the barbarism of history.