Esther Hyhlíková studies Radio and Television Dramaturgy and Screenwriting at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts, and Literature and Cultural Studies at Masaryk University in Brno. During her studies, she spent a year in Türkiye—a place she continues to revisit in her work as a space of memory and postcolonial reflection. Her writing moves between literary reportage and creative nonfiction, exploring the line between the personal and the political.

She is part of the production and coordination team of Terén, the third stage of the Centre for Experimental Theatre, and leads the PR and communications for Festival of young theatre PLÁCEK. Her texts and audio works have appeared in revue Host, Český rozhlas (Czech Radio), iRozhlas.cz, Divadelní noviny, and Radio Proglas.

Esther’s work seeks to uncover unconventional ways of narrating the phenomena that shape our shared reality—from the intimacy of everyday life to the vastness of global contexts. Within the Perspectives programme, she is developing a two longform projects. First revolves around death, mourning, and remembrance, the second examines the biopolitics and (independent) culture in the spa town of Karlovy Vary.

Revue Prostor ⟶

November 2025

Why aren't you crying? Didn't you love your mom? What funerals on TV didn't prepare me for

When my mother died, I realized that it was impossible to prepare for sadness and the ensuing grief. Death involves much more than the funerals I knew from movies: above all, shock and helplessness, an odyssey into a dysfunctional culture of mourning and emotional illiteracy, unwanted forgetting, and growing up on your own. And there are many of us orphans like that.
 


by Jana Vorontsova
first published by Esther Hyhlíková under the title
„Proč nebrečíš, to jsi maminku neměla ráda?“ Na co mě pohřby v televizi nepřipravily