Artists submitted five designs to the J. Škvorecký bench competition

Náchod - In a competition for a bench dedicated to writer Josef Škvorecký, announced by the Náchod city hall, artists submitted five designs. The winner will be selected by a jury, said Nina Adlof, spokeswoman for the Náchod city hall, today to ČTK. Škvorecký, a native of Náchod, passed away in January 2012 at the age of 87 in Toronto, Canada.
    "We expect that within a week, a date will be set when the members of the evaluation committee will meet, and then they will select one of the designs," Adlof said. The work commemorating Škvorecký is to be placed in Masaryk Square no later than the end of July 2014.
    The tender conditions state that a realistic statue of Škvorecký at about 60 years old should be sitting on the bench, and the proposal must also include an informational board with basic details. The bench should provide two seating places for passersby. The city hall expects that costs will not exceed 850,000 crowns.
    Škvorecký, who was born in Náchod, depicted his youth primarily in his most famous novel The Cowards and in the book A Prime Season. At the beginning of 1969, he moved to Canada. In Toronto, together with his wife, writer and actress Zdena Salivarová, he founded Sixty-Eight Publishers, where they published works by authors who were unable to publish in communist Czechoslovakia. The writer last visited the city in 2004 on the occasion of his 80th birthday.