Author's reading by Jan Štifter

Jan Štifter is a Czech journalist and writer. He studied cultural history at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Pardubice.

A Czech journalist and writer studied cultural history at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Pardubice. He worked in the editorial offices of Mladá fronta DNES and Lidové noviny, and served as the editor-in-chief of the weekly Sedmička. His activities and work are focused on the South Bohemian region, particularly Novohradsko, Trhové Sviny, and the surrounding area. He is the editor-in-chief of the quarterly magazine Barbar!, a lifestyle magazine he founded in 2013. He has long collaborated with the Institute for Monuments and Culture and with Czech Radio České Budějovice, for which he writes short stories. His most successful novel, Café Groll, was serialized on the radio. It was also adapted for the South Bohemian Theatre (premiere in December 2020). The novel The Collector of Snow, awarded the readers' prize in the Czech Book literary award 2019, has been translated into Polish. In the field of literature, he debuted with the novella Kathy (2014), a story about his grandmother from the end of World War II. This was followed by the novella Café Groll (2016), set in the early 20th century about a doctor who cares for local prostitutes. Both books were loosely followed by The Collector of Snow (2018), which reflects three generations in three stories about fleeting presence. His latest titles are the guide Za tichem (2024), which takes us through forgotten local stories to remote educational trails, abandoned cemeteries, and silent villages in the forests of the Novohradské mountains, and the memoir collage The Part of Beautiful Rudi (2025), where the author revives memories of his grandfather Rudolf, known as "beautiful Rudi" – a man whose life was infused with charm, perspective, and passion. A discussion with a book signing will follow.