Josef Hrdlička (b.1969) published three collections of poetry: The Fleet Sails Out of Darkness (2010), Cat in the Fire (2014) and Ancestors of Bones (2021, nominated for the Magnesia Litera Award), and a collection of essays and poems, Inside the World (2012).

He teaches literature at Charles University in Prague, focusing on comparative literature and the theory and history of poetry. His scholarly books include Images of the World in Czech Literature (2008), Poetry and the Cosmos (2017), and Poetry in Exile (2020). With a wider team of co-authors, he has contributed to several volumes on poetry: Poems and Places (2015), Voices of Places (2016), Heroes in Poems (2017), Things in Poems (2020 Czech; 2022 English edition).