Central European modern history is notable for many political and cultural discontinuities and often violent changes as well as many attempts to preserve and (re)invent traditional cultural identities. This series cultivates contemporary translations of influential literary works into English (and other languages) which have not been available to global readership due to censorship, the effects of Cold War or repetitive political disruptions in Czech publishing and its international ties. Readers in English both in today’s cosmopolitan Prague or anywhere in the physical and electronic world can thus become acquainted with works which capture the Central European historical experience and which express and also have helped to form Czech and Central European nature, humour and imagination. Believing that any literary canon can be defined only in dialogue with other cultures, the series will bring proven classics used in Western university courses as well as (re)discoveries aiming to provide new perspectives in intermedial areal studies of literature, history and culture. All titles are accompanied by an afterword, the translations are reviewed and circulated in the scholarly community before publication which has been reflected by nominations for several literary awards.
Un été capricieux

Un été capricieux

Vančura, Vladislav

In Summer of Caprice (the classic novel of the Twenties that was adapted into the beloved film of the Czech New Wave in the Sixties) the ...

published: december 2014
recommended price: 500 czk

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Un'estate capricciosa

Un'estate capricciosa

Vančura, Vladislav

Vladislav Vančura's Summer of Caprice is commonly considered untranslatable. The playful style of the narrative, the level of language ma...

published: november 2013
recommended price: 480 czk

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Velitelem města Bugulmy

Velitelem města Bugulmy

Hašek, Jaroslav

Jaroslav Hašek is a Czech writer most famous for his widely read if incomplete novel The Good Soldier Schweik, a series of absurdist vign...

published: january 2012
recommended price: 285 czk

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Views from the Inside

Views from the Inside

Machovec, Martin (ed.)

From political novels to surrealist poetry and censored rock and roll, Czech underground culture of the latter twentieth century displaye...

Czech Underground Literature and Culture (1948–1989)

published: april 2018
recommended price: 260 czk

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We Were a Handful

We Were a Handful

Poláček, Karel

A famous Czech humoristic novel depicting adventures of five boys from a small Czech town in the form of a child's diary written by Petr ...

published: december 2007
recommended price: 490 czk

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Why I Write?

Why I Write?

Hrabal, Bohumil

This collection of the earliest prose by one of literature’s greatest stylists captures, as scholar Arnault Maréchal put it, “the moment ...

And Other Early Prose Pieces

published: november 2019
recommended price: 490 czk

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Writing Underground

Writing Underground

Machovec, Martin

In this collection of writings produced between 2000 and 2018, the pioneering literary historian of the Czech underground, Martin Machove...

Reflections on Samizdat Literature in Totalitarian Czechoslovakia

published: december 2019
recommended price: 290 czk

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