Martina Straková

Martina Straková debuted with her poetry collection Pohľadnice z neviditeľných miest /Postcards from Invisible Places/ (Ars Poetica, 2019), for which she was the first debutant in the history of Slovakia to receive the prestigious international award The Bridges of Struga Award, which is given under the auspices of UNESCO by an international jury at the Struga Poetry Evenings, the oldest poetry festival in Europe, based in North Macedonia.

Under the artistic name Irène Findrych, she has so far published two storybooks for children, Štyri strakuľky a jeden kolibrík alebo Vianočné prekvapenia, aké ste ešte nezažili /Four Magpie Birdies and a Hummingbird or Christmas Surprises You've Never Experienced Before/ (Mladé topole, 2019) and the leporello Puntidlo a Puntidielko. Rozprávkové machuľky /Puntidlo and Puntidielko. The Fairy Tales of Little Splodges/ (Mladé topole, 2021). Straková is also a nominee of the Ars Poetica festival for the only project dedicated to poetry in the European Union and supported by it - Versopolis.

In addition to writing poetry and fairy tales for children, she is also involved in artistic translation from German and English into Slovak and vice versa. Since 2013, she has been running a creative writing workshop for the public, offered as part of the international poetry festival Ars Poetica programme. She is the founder and director of the civic association and publishing house Mladé topole and the author of the online lifestyle project Príbehy a peripetie Gertrud Wurmovej /Stories and Rigmaroles of Gertrud Wurm/. She lives and works in Bratislava. More about the author at www.martistrak.sk