KAROLINA VÁLOVÁ

Karolina’s research specializes in the literary analysis of prose by Lusophone authors. In their works, she tries to find points that illustrate the search for and discovery of national identity. This is often associated with the search for the personal identity of the main characters. Since 2017, Karolina has worked at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University in Prague, where she teaches courses on literary theory and Lusophone literature. In 2018, she defended her dissertation entitled The Transformation of House (An Analysis of House in 20th Century Portuguese Novels), which explored the conceptualization, representation, and metamorphosis of domestic space in the prose of Carlos de Oliveira, Vergílio Ferreira, and Lidia Jorge. She is the founder of the project 100 František / Jorge Listopad, which published a Czech-Portuguese collective monograph with the same name in 2021 and, in 2023, a book called Jorge Listopad and František Listopad’s Rosa Definitiva, intended particularly for Portuguese readers.

Within the Romani Atlantic project, Karolina will be strictly focused on the analysis of two novels. Myra (2008) was written by Portuguese author Maria Velho da Costa, and A Rainha Ginga (The Queen Jinga, 2014) was written by Angolan author José Eduardo Agualusa. Both books show that memory is not just a record of what happened, but rather a vital element that shapes our present and future.