The latest addition to my website isJaroslav Rudiš‘Winterbergs letzte Reise (Winterberg’s Last Journey). Winterberg is a 99 year old man originally from what was Sudetenland. At the end of the war, German speakers were expelled and he went to Berlin. He now, with the help of his carer, Jan Kraus, plans to travel round Central … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Eva Švankmajerová‘s Jeskyně Baradla (Baradla Cave). This novel was first published in samizdat in 1981 and was only published in book form in 1995, after the fall of communism. It is a surrealist novel by a woman known more as poet and artist than novelist but it works … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Michal Ajvaz‘s Cesta na jih (Journey to the South). This is an amazing work, starting with a ballet of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and where one of the dancers murders an audience member. Martin who saw the murder and who is writing a thesis on Kant, and … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Petra Hůlová‘s Stručné dějiny Hnutí (The Movement). This is a feminist dystopian novel. In this New World, men are sent to a institute – in some cases voluntarily but often at the instigation of their spouses or even simply snatched from the streets, where they are retrained – … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Vítězslav Nezval‘s Žena v množném čísle (Woman in the Plural). This is not even vaguely a novel but,rather, a collection of pieces – poetry, short prose pieces and a drama – all of which are surrealistic in nature, as Nezval was on one of, if not the leading … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Vítězslav Nezval‘s Valérie a týden divů (Valerie and Her Week of Wonders) . Nezval was a committed surrealist, friends with André Breton and other surrealists when he wrote this book in 1932 (thirteen years before it was finally published in Czech). It is a spoof Gothic novel with … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jan Balabán‘s Kudy šel anděl? (Where Was the Angel Going?). The novel is set in Ostrava, site of a huge coalfield, with many of the people involved in mining. We follow primarily Martin Vrána but also various others as they struggle with life. Martin’s first romance (with Eva) … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Josef Pánek‘s Láska v době globálních klimatických změn [Love in the Time of Global Climate Change]. This is a witty (with Czech-style wit) novel about racism and racial differences. Tomáš is a divorced molecular biologist, attending a conference in Bangalore. He does not like the place – the … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Egon Hostovský‘s Úkryt (The Hideout). The novel was first published in 1943 but has just been reissued by Pushkin Press. It tells the story of an unnamed narrator, a Czech engineer who has invented a revolutionary anti-aircraft gun sight. However, the Munich Agreement has happened. As he does … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jaroslav Kalfar‘s Spacemen of Bohemia. Kalfar was born in Prague but moved to the US when he was fifteen and wrote this novel in English. It is about Jakub Procházka, the first Czech astronaut (in 2018), who is sent into space to investigate a mysterious purple cloud between … Read more