Series

Modern Czech Classics(40)

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.
by date by title by author
Summer of Caprice

Summer of Caprice

Vančura, Vladislav

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

published: may 2006
recommended price: 480 czk

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The Cremator (paperback)

The Cremator (paperback)

Fuks, Ladislav

“The devil’s neatest trick is to persuade us that he doesn’t exist.” It is a maxim that both rings true in our contemporary world and per...

published: october 2016
recommended price: 280 czk

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The Chattertooth Eleven

The Chattertooth Eleven

Bass, Eduard

Eduard Bass' story from 1922, a classic of Czech literature, has been published in English (Karolinum 2008). The translation, distinctive...

published: february 2009
recommended price: 390 czk

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The Lesser Histories

The Lesser Histories

Zábrana, Jan

From the eighth floor of a tower block in Central Europe, Jan Zábrana surveyed the twentieth century. He had been exiled from his own lif...

published: june 2022
recommended price: 340 czk

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The Pied Piper

The Pied Piper

Dyk, Viktor

For The Pied Piper, Czech writer Viktor Dyk found his muse in the much retold medieval Saxon legend of the villainous, pipe-playing rat-c...

published: april 2018
recommended price: 280 czk

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The Shop on Main Street

The Shop on Main Street

Grosman, Ladislav

A classical work of the 1960s Czechoslovak literature and film in a new publication of Iris Urwin Lewit’s translation. An original and re...

published: august 2019
recommended price: 280 czk

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The Well at Morning

The Well at Morning

Reynek, Bohuslav

Poet and artist Bohuslav Reynek spent most of his life in the relative obskurity of the Czech-Moravian Highlands; although he suffered at...

Selected Poems and Graphic Artworks, 1925–1971

published: september 2017
recommended price: 490 czk

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

Un'estate capricciosa

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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