From wonder to literary text : experiencing space in Czech young prose

The paper discusses the experience of space in Czech young prose (published after the year 2000 and written by authors born after the year 1968) that often locates the plot outside of Europe. The study argues that the sources of this new literary genre can be found in Aristotle’s category of wonder. Drawing on recent concepts of literary space, from Foucault’s heterotopias to the postcolonial idea of new cosmopolitism, and the idea of exoticism, the paper attempts to outline the tendencies to create spatial representations within the analyzed texts. The analysis concludes with an invitation to further interpretations of space representation in contemporary Czech prose