Překlady českých autorů

Written against the background of the rise of Nazism, War With the Newts concerns the discovery in the South Pacific of a sea-dwelling race, which is enslaved and exploited by mankind. In time they rebel, laying siege to the strongholds of their former masters in a global war for supremacy. R.U.R., or Rossum's Universal Robots, seen by many as a modern interpretation of the 'golem' myth, is regarded as the most important play in the history of SF. It introduced the word 'robot' and gave the genre one of its most enduring tropes.

Kundera whirls through comedy and tragedy towards his central question: how does a person, any person, live today? In constructing his answer, he writes of politics, sex, literature, modern man's alienation - and of their antidotes: laughter and forgetting.

"The Cowards (1958)" is Josef Skvorecky's blackly comic tale of post-war politics that was immediately banned on publication. In 1945, in Kostelec, Danny is playing saxophone for the best jazz band in Czechoslovakia. Their trumpeter has just got out of a concentration camp, their bass player is only allowed in the band since he owns the bass, and the love of Danny's life is in love with somebody else. But Danny despairs most about the bourgeoisie patriots in his town playing at revolution in the face of the approaching Red Army - not least because it ruins the band's chance of any good gigs.

The Night Club Part II, by Jiri Kulhanek, is the second part of the author’s first novel translated into English. At the story's heart is the Night Club, a secret organization operating in Prague that hunts down evildoers, who evade the police and operate above the law. Crime fighter Tobias returns with two impossible tasks in hand—avenge the near destruction of the Club, and rescue friends Thomas, Babe, and Creampuff from the clutches of the Hidden race. As a result of being turned into a vampire by a beautiful Japanese woman called Hanako, Tobias is capable of unleashing the power of a supernatural weapon called the Demon Shadow. But can he reach his friends in time? Written for those who enjoy science fiction, relish stories about vampires, and are thrilled by action and adventu

Hasek's most important work was centered around the deeply funny story of a hapless Czech soldier in the Austro-Hungarian army -- dismissed for incompetence only to be pressed into service by the Russians in World War I (where he is captured by his own troops). A mischief-maker, bohemian and drunk, Hasek demonstrated his wit in this classic novel of the Czech character and preposterous nature of war.

The narrator of Ivan Klima's novel has temporarily abandoned his work-in-progress - an essay on Kafka - and exchanged his writer's pen for the orange vest of a Prague road-sweeper. As he works, he meditates on Czechoslovakia, on Kafka, on life, on art and, obsessively, on his passionate and adulterous love affair with the sculptress Daria. Gradually he admits the impossibility of being at once an honest writer and an honest lover, and with that agonizing discovery comes a moment of choice.

This breathtaking, reverberating survey of human nature finds Kundera still attempting to work out the meaning of life without losing his acute sense of humour. It is one of those great unclassifiable masterpieces that appear once every twenty years or so. 'It will make you cleverer, maybe even a better lover. Not many novels can do that.' Nicholas Lezard, GQ

When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin. With this startling, bizarre, yet surprisingly funny first sentence, Kafka begins his masterpiece, The Metamorphosis. It is the story of a young man who, transformed overnight into a giant beetlelike insect, becomes an object of disgrace to his family, an outsider in his own home, a quintessentially alienated man. A harrowing -- though absurdly comic -- meditation on human feelings of inadequecy, guilt, and isolation, The Metamorphosis has taken its place as one of the mosst widely read and influential works of twentieth-century fiction. As W.H. Auden wrote, Kafka is important to us because his predicament is the predicament of modern man.

Dear children,

Josef Čapek, the writer, wrote for you the Tale About a doggie and a pussycat. For this Tale he also drew lots of very nice pictures. When he was writing and drawing all of this, little Alice was sitting on his lap. She was his daughter and he loved her very much, and little Alice loved her father. Because they were fond of each other like that, Mr. Čapek wrote and drew his story just like his Alice wished. Maybe she even suggested a bit what he should write and draw. However, we are not sure about that, we are just quessing. We would like to tell you that we are in good health and that we just began to be published as a serial for children. Now, as far as we know, you are going to be told in different books how we were washing the floor, how we made a cak