Aids Elsa

Elsa Aids (b. 1981) is a Czech poet and writer of fiction who is active in the wider world of culture. Between 2006 and 2010, he self-published six collections of poetry, from which he subsequently compiled the anthology Trojjediný prst [The Triune Finger] (2011), which became his official literary debut. He has also published the collections of poetry Nenávist [Hate] (2014), Kniha omezení [The Book of Limitations] (2017) and Lazarská v zimě a jiné básně [Lazarská in Winter and Other Poems] (2023). Aids is the author of the subtle, laconic novella Přípravy na všechno [Preparations for Everything] (2020), which garnered widespread reader acclaim as a “raw probe into the everyday pathologies of contemporary Czechia”. Translated into German by Susa Wolfrum under the title Vorbereiten auf alles, this book was published by Parasitenpresse in 2024. Aids’s work has reflected on the unsatisfactory nature of social and intimate situations in late-capitalist society, as well as on “temporary or makeshift possibilities for happiness”. He is one of the poets nominated for the 2026 Dresden Poetry Prize.