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[ excerpt ]
Czech writing
also by the author:
Too Loud a Solitude
I Served the King of England
The Little Town Where Time Stood Still
In-House Weddings
about the translator:
James Naughton is Professor of Czech Language and Literature at Oxford University. He is the
translator of Hrabal's The Little Town Where Time Stood Still and The Jingle Bell
Principle by Miroslav Holub.
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total fears: letters to dubenka
by Bohumil Hrabal
translated from the Czech by James Naughton
In these letters written to April Gifford between 1989 and 1991 but never sent, Bohumil Hrabal
(1914-1997) chronicles the momentous events of those years as seen, more often than not, from the
windows of his favorite pubs. In his palavering style that has marked him as one of the major writers
and innovators of post-war European literature, Hrabal gives a humorous and
at times moving account of life in Prague under Nazi occupation, communism,
and the brief euphoria following the revolution of 1989 when anything seemed
possible, even pink tanks. Interspersed are fragmented memories of trips
taken to Britain — as he attempted to track down every location mentioned
in Eliot's "The Waste Land" — and the United States, where he ends up in
one of Dylan Thomas's haunts comparing the waitresses to ones he knew in
Prague. The result is a masterful blend of personal history and poetic prose.
Praise:
The publication of this book marks a major event ... As an addition to
English Hrabalia, Total Fears is invaluable, and unlikely to be matched for some time. |
— The Prague Post
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The conditions under which Hrabal created [his] oeuvre, the final lifting
with the collapse of Communism in 1989 and their grievous, indestructible
memory, are all recorded, along with visits to Britain and "the Delighted
States" in an extraordinary series of half-imaginary letters to "Dubenka"
— a visiting American student who made a great impression on Hrabal ... It is quick, rambling,
spoken, but purposeful writing. |
— Michael Hofmann, The TLS
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In Total Fears, Hrabal glancingly commends Freud's writing about comedy and jokes, and calls it "typically
Central European, and especially typical of Prague." [...] This is blocked humour about blocked people. Hrabal, in
Freud's terms, is a great humorist. |
— James Wood, London Review of Books
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Bohumil Hrabal at his most ecstatic, in the sense of almost religious fervor, full of the "mystic vision" of Eastern
European writers. They are his dark night of the soul, his "Wasteland." Written from 1989 to 1992 (when Hrabal was 75),
they are the sum of his fear and his shame. Fear born in utero when his grandfather pretended to shoot Hrabal's pregnant
mother just to teach her a lesson; fear that lasted through his life of many revolutions, uprisings and his own
persecution by Nazis and the secret police during Alexander Dubcek's government. Shame at being a writer; shame for
being afraid and playing along with the secret police; shame at being enthralled with the "Delighted States" when his
country was in upheaval in 1968 and again in the late 1980s. |
— Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times
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The present translated collection gives the impression of a unified body of
work, written with a consistent style and voice and concentrating on particular
themes. The style will be familiar to readers of Hrabal: a stream of consciousness reflection presenting a poetic train of associations ... |
— The New Presence
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ISBN 978 80 902171 9 5
204 pp.
145 x 205mm
softcover with flaps
cover image by
Vladimir Boudnik
literature / essays
Price of €13.50 includes airmail worldwide
or order from:
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Powells
SPD
Central Books
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