Author of the Month: Bohumil Hrabal
Selected by the Bookshop
Our Author of the Month for August is the Czech novelist Bohumil Hrabal, born in 1914 in what was then Austria-Hungary. During the Second World War he worked as a railway labourer and dispatcher – an experience that formed the basis for his most famous work, Closely Watched Trains – followed by stints as insurance agent, travelling salesman and day labourer. His first published book, a collection of lyrical poetry, was published in 1948 but withdrawn from circulation following the establishment of the Communist regime.
In the early 1960s he became a professional writer, with the publication of Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age and Closely Watched Trains, but following the suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968 Hrabal was only able to publish in samizdat or abroad. His work draws on the tradition of Czech satire, marked by bawdy humour, reminiscent at times of Hašek’s Good Soldier Švejk. Hrabal died in 1997 following a fall from a fifth floor window of a Prague hospital.
You can see a full list of his titles available in English below, or come and meet them in person on our dedicated Hrabal table throughout August.
From the publisher:
Explosionalist texts and artwork by Vladimír Boudníktranslated from the Czech by Jed Slastafterword by Vladislav MerhautVladimír Boudník never wanted to live as a successor towhat had already…
From the publisher:
'Folks, life is beautiful! Bring on the drinks, I'm sticking around till I'm ninety! Do you hear?'A young boy grows up in a sleepy Czech community where little changes. His raucous, mischievous Uncle Pepin came to stay with the family…
From the publisher:
'As I crammed the cream horn voraciously into my mouth, at once I heard Francin's voice saying that no decent woman would eat a cream puff like that'In a quiet town where not much happens, Maryska, the flamboyant brewer's wife, stands…
From the publisher:
Novelist Bohumil Hrabal was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia, and he spent decades working at a variety of laboring jobs before turning to writing in his late forties. From that point, he quickly made his mark on the Czech literary scene; by…
From the publisher:
Enter the gas-lit streets of post-war Prague, the steelworks run by singed men, the covered market that smells of new-born babes, the cacophonous open-air dance hall. Mr Kafka is avoiding his landlady's blueberry wine breath, a stonemason…
From the publisher:
'One of the greatest European prose writers' Philip RothIn the autumn of 1965, Bohumil Hrabal bought a weekend cottage in the countryside east of Prague. There, until his death, he tended to an ever-growing, unruly community of cats. This…
From the publisher:
This ebullient, gallivanting novel encapsulates the world vision of the Czech Republic’s best-loved author in one tumbling, breathtaking sentence. Saints and sinners, emperors and embezzlers, barmaids and balalaikas all play their…
From the publisher:
A classic of postwar literature, a small masterpiece of humour, humanity and heroism from one of the best Czech writersFor twenty-two-year-old Milos, bumbling apprentice at a sleepy Czech railway station, life is full of worries: his…
From the publisher:
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ADAM THIRLWELL‘Our very best writer today’ Milan KunderaSparkling with comic genius and narrative exuberance, I Served the King of England is a story of how the unbelievable came true. Its remarkable…
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