Related articles
Czech BooksGod the linguist teaches us to breathe
“Bixley Remedial School” is one of the most remarkable collections of
Czech poetry from the second half of the twentieth century. At the time it
was first published in the early 1980s, its author Ivan Blatný was a
long-term patient in a psychiatric hospital in England. A new edition of
the collection reminds us that Blatný’s poetry is far from being the
mere scribbling of a madman. David Vaughan reports. More
Current Affairs22nd edition of Prague Writers’ Festival brings international literature greats like Hanif Kureishi to Czech capital
On Saturday, the 22nd edition of the prestigious Prague Writers’ Festival
kicks off in the Czech capital, under the theme of “Only the future
exists”. For five days, visitors will have the opportunity to attend
readings, discussion panels and film screenings featuring writers from
around the world. As every year, the festival brings writers of
international caliber to the city, with the British novelist and
screenwriter Hanif Kureishi probably the most famous guest this year. Sarah
Borufka spoke to the festival’s president, Michael March, about the
guests, the mission and the theme of the festival. More
Czech Books“Sala’s Gift”: a whole war in a tin box
You will probably not have heard of Gross Sarne, Brande, Blechhammer or
Schatzlar, but these are places that should be remembered. They were all
Nazi slave labour camps in World War Two. The last on that list, Schatzlar,
or Žacléř as it is known in Czech, was in what is now the Czech
Republic, in the part of north-eastern Bohemia annexed by the German Reich
in 1938. Few people in this country, even among the inhabitants of
Žacléř itself, know that the camp even existed, but a new book should
help to put that right. The daughter of one of the survivors has just been
in the Czech Republic, to launch the Czech edition of her book “Sala’s
Gift”. The book tells her mother’s story, drawing richly from Sala’s
own memories and from several hundred letters that, against all odds,
survived the war. David Vaughan tells the story. More
Czech BooksA new “Czech Literature Guide” gives useful insights into the world of Czech books
If you’re looking for an overview of the current Czech literary scene in
English – everything from surrealist poets to second-hand bookshops –
the new “Czech Literature Guide” should be just the book for you. As it
states in its introduction, the book’s aim is to present a “panorama of
the contemporary life of Czech literature”. David Vaughan reports. More
Czech Books“Heaven, distance, light and dazzling brightness”: Czech literary links with Scandinavia
Did you know that one of Norway’s popular writers is actually Czech, or
that in the mid 1930s Karel Čapek fell in love with the forests and skies
of Scandinavia? And do Czechs and Danes have more in common than just beer?
David Vaughan looks at Czech-Scandinavian literary links. More
Czech BooksTomáš Zmeškal: The Biography of a Black-and-White Lamb
When Tomáš Zmeškal’s first novel was published four years ago, one
critic described it in ecstatic terms as a “gold vein amid the deadwood
of contemporary Czech scribbling”. The book, A Love Letter in Cuneiform
Script, went on to win the coveted European Union Prize for Literature last
year and Tomáš Zmeškal has won international acclaim, although we are
still waiting for either of his two novels published so far to appear in
English. David Vaughan talks to the writer. More
Czech BooksDickens and the Good Soldier Švejk
Here is a question for the Dickens bicentenary. What is the connection
between the great 19th century English novelist and the best-loved Czech
literary anti-hero? The answer is, surprisingly enough, that without
Dickens we quite possibly wouldn’t have Švejk at all. David Vaughan
looks at this and some other Czech links with Dickens in this week’s
Czech Books. More
+1
+10
