Kategoria BISAC: Fiction >> World Literature - Czech Republic

In this dark farce of a novel, set in an old-fashioned Central European spa town, eight characters are swept up in an accelerating dance: a pretty nurse and her repairman boyfriend; an oddball gynecologist; a rich American (at once saint and Don Juan); a popular trumpeter and his beautiful, obsessively jealous wife; an disillusioned former political prisoner about to leave his country and his young woman ward.Perhaps the most brilliantly plotted and sheer entertaining of Milan Kundera's novels, Farewell Waltz poses the most serious questions with a blasphemous lightness that makes...

Petra Hulova became an overnight sensation when "All This Belongs to Me "was originally published in Czech in 2002, when the author was just twenty three years old. She has since established herself as one of the most exciting young novelists in Europe today. Writings from an Unbound Europe" "is proud to publish the first translation of her work in English."

All This Belongs to Me "chronicles the lives of three generations of women in a Mongolian family. Told from the point of view of a mother, three sisters, and the daughter of one of the sisters, this story of secrets and betrayals...

Vita Nuova is the second in a trilogy of memoirs written from the perspective

of Bohumil Hrabal s wife, Elis.ka, about their life in Prague

from the 1950s to the 1970s, when Communist repression of artists was

at its peak.

Hrabal s inimitable humor, which in Elis.ka s ruminations ranges

from bawdy slapstick to cutting irony, is all the more penetrating for

being directed at himself. Vita Nuova showcases Hrabal s legendary

bohemian intellectual life, particularly his relationship with Vladimir

Boudnik. Hrabal creates a shrewd, lively portrait of Eastern European...

Still more enigmatic is The Castle. Is it an...

The author initially intended to call this novel The Lyrical Age. The lyrical age, according to Kundera, is youth, and this novel, above all, is an epic of adolescence; an ironic epic that tenderly erodes sacrosanct values: childhood, motherhood, revolution, and even poetry. Jaromil is in fact a poet. His mother made him a poet and accompanies him (figuratively) to his love bed and (literally) to his deathbed. A ridiculous and touching character, horrifying and totally innocent ("innocence with its bloody smile" ), Jaromil is at the same time a true poet. He's no creep, he's...

Since his death in 1924, Kafka has come to be regarded as one of the greatest modern writers, one whose work brilliantly explores the anxiety, futility, and complexity of modern life. The precision and clarity of Kafka's style, its powerful symbolism, and his existential exploration of the human condition have given his work universal significance.
In addition to the title selection, considered by many critics Kafka's most perfect work, this collection includes "The Judgment," "In the Penal Colony," "A Country Doctor," and "A Report to an Academy." Stanley Appelbaum has provided...