Abstract
In this chapter, we deal with the role of reception barriers in the Czech reception of the Polish literary reportage. Literary reportage, as it is understood in the Polish tradition, is only slightly represented in the Czech literary tradition.
Today, however, the number of Polish reportage books being translated into Czech increases. This causes a number of thought-provoking impulses both in the translation process, as well as in the reception and interpretation of the translated texts.
For example, the way this genre specificity and distinction of the literary reportage is manifested leads to various misunderstandings among the Czech recipients, both readers and literary critics or even historians. On the other hand, these misunderstandings ultimately lead to a reviving interest in the Polish reportage tradition.
Genre strangeness (the Czechs perceive a literary reportage more through the lens of such genres as travel journal, essay or diaries; the crucial problem for them is the position of a reporter within the text and his author's gesture, or, in other words, balancing on the boundary of objectivity and subjectivity) paradoxically also has its positive aspect - for the reader, this strangeness becomes attractive, requires re-evaluation of deep-rooted genre boundaries, and ultimately helps to break down the cultural strangeness.