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[excerpt]
book view
also by the author and translator:
House of the Nine Devils
The Last Bell
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prague triptych
by Johannes Urzidil
translated from the German by David Burnett
Structured as a Baroque altarpiece, Prague Triptych is written in Urzidil’s characteristic blend of fact, fiction, and memoir
to create a mosaic of his native city. The centerpiece is the novella-length “Weissenstein Karl,” a palavering denizen of Café Arco
who sits and converses with Franz Werfel, Max Brod, Franz Kafka, Ernst Pollak (and his wife-to-be Milena Jesenská) and all the
other writers known as the Prague Circle, many of whom also make cameos in other parts of the book. Through the eyes of his subjects, Urzidil
takes us from Prague’s earliest history and lore through the Thirty Years’ War with its multiple defenestrations, to fin-de-siècle ferment
and the uneasy cohabitation between Czechs, Germans, and Jews over the final decades of Habsburg rule, and ultimately to the period
immediate following WWI and the establishment of an independent Czechoslovakia. This journey is capped with a final, dreamlike farewell
from Urzidil to his city as the iron curtain descends like a theater curtain to signal the end of the performance and the darkening of the stage
that had been graced by those he once knew.
The most erudite of all Prague German writers, his mastery consists not least of all in his ability to tell a story while politely concealing his erudition.
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— Peter Demetz
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ISBN 9788088628064
228 pp., 135 x 195 mm
softcover with flaps
fiction : memoir
publication:
UK/Europe: July 2026
US/Canada: October 2026
pre-order directly:
airmail shipping & handling incl.
will ship in June
or order from:
Bookshops
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e-book
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