Section Archive Czech Books
Bohumil Hrabal and Miroslav Holub - two legends of twentieth century Czech writing
Hello and a very warm welcome to another edition of Czech Books. Over the
last weeks you'll have got used in this programme to hearing the voice of
Bernie Higgins. Today Bernie's on the other side of the microphone. She
joins me in the studio to talk about some of her favourite Czech books.
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Eva Hauserova and the world of Czech feminist writing
Hello and welcome to Czech Books. This week I'm talking to Eva Hauserova,
who is a household name in the Czech Republic because she's regularly on
radio and television, speaking on a range of issues. She's well known as a
feminist, which we'll talk more about in a little while. Eva's the author
of a number of books: novels, short stories, collections of journalism.
She's also a talented cartoonist. I'd like to start off our discussion
talking about her work.
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From Bridget Jones to T.S. Eliot: the mysteries of the Czech market for translations from English
Hello and welcome to Czech Books. And this week I have with me Kristin
Olson, who is a literary agent, and is going to talk about the Czech book
market in relation to the English books that are popular here. First I'd
like to ask you why you came and why you decided to set up a literary
agency?
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Bozena Nemcova - the mother of Czech prose
Hello and welcome to Czech Books, which this week will be looking at the
Czech icon and -in the words of Milan Kundera - the mother of Czech prose,
Bozena Nemcova. We'd like today to dig a bit deeper into the reality of
the woman behind the image, which is embedded in Czech culture. Nemcova
lived from 1820 to 1862 and was a major figure in the Czech national
revival. She's most famous for her book about an idealized rural community
in the early 19th century, "Babicka" - The Grandmother. This
book has been translated into many languages and is known by all Czechs as
part of their school reading. Nemcova's image is also very much a part of
Czech culture. Here are a few lines from Babicka in a 19th century
translation by Frances Gregor.
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"The Aluminium Queen" - an extraordinary collection of accounts by women who survived war
Welcome to another edition of Czech Books - our bi-weekly look at Czech
writing today. In this programme we're going to be looking at one of the
most moving books that I've read in recent months, written by the Czech
Republic's best-known war reporter, Petra Prochazkova. "The Aluminum
Queen", brought out by the Lidove Noviny publishing house in both a
Czech and an English edition, is a collection of in-depth interviews that
Prochazkova made with Chechen women she met in refugee camps or in the
ruins of the Chechen capital Grozny. Here's one woman, Elza, recalling her
previous life as a baker, before the first Chechen war broke out, in a
passage typical for the book both in the tragedy of the situation and in
the poetry of the dreams and hopes of the women who speak.
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Mira Wanek - a Czech songwriter with a legendary reputation
In Czech Books today we look at a form of writing that played a huge role
in the fertile world of the Czech underground during the last years of the
communist regime - the song lyric.
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Iva Pekarkova: a Czech writer at home on both sides of the Atlantic
Welcome to "Czech Books", our new fortnightly series devoted to
Czech writing and writers. In a series of interviews over the next few
weeks the writer and musician Pavla Jonssonova, well known from the
popular band Zuby Nehty, will be talking to a number of Czechs writing
today. She starts with one of the most interesting contemporary Czech
novelists, Iva Pekarkova, whose books are filled with energy, eroticism
and heroines who are not afraid to take their fate into their own hands.
Her first novel appeared in English as "Truck Stop Rainbows" in
1992, and is about a young woman who seeks freedom on the open road in the
unlikely setting of communist Czechoslovakia. And Gin, the heroine of her
more recent novel "Gimme the Money" is just as fearless, in a
story inspired by the author's own experiences as a New York cab driver in
the 1990s. Readers in English will soon have the chance to get to know
another Czech heroine or anti-heroine, when Iva's novel "The
Scars" appears later this year. The action heroine is an untypical
feature of Czech writing, and this was what interested Pavla Jonssonova,
when she caught up with Iva a few days ago in a Prague café.
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