Překlady českých autorů

Díla Ladislava Fukse bývají charakterizována jako psychologická próza zaměřená na téma úzkosti a zla v totalitních systémech. Autor je u nás i v zahraničí známý zpracováním tématu holocaustu (Spalovač mrtvol, Pan Theodor Mundstock). Myši Natálie Mooshabrové jsou prvním Fuksovým románem, ve kterém pracuje s novou tematikou a s prvky žánrů sci-fi a alegorie. Specifický humor, směs hororu i grotesky, pohádky i absurdního dramatu vytvářejí intenzivní atmosféru strachu a nejistoty, kterou umocňují bizarní protiklady hvězdoletů a koňských povozů či sofistikované byrokracie a stánků s pivo limo. Kniha byla rozpracována před okupací Československa v roce 1968, ale vydána až počátkem sedmdesátých let. První překlad díla do angli

Playful and provocative, irreverent and inspiring, Capek is perhaps the best-loved Czech writer of all time. Novelist and playwright, famed for inventing the word 'robot' in his play "RUR", Capek was a vital part of the burgeoning artistic scene of Czechoslovakia of the 1920s and 30s. But it is in his journalism - his brief, sparky and delightful columns - that Capek can be found at his most succinct, direct and appealing. This selection of Capek's writing, translated into English for the first time, contains his essential ideas. The pieces are animated by his passion for the ordinary and the everyday - from laundry to toothache, from cats to cleaning windows - his love of language, his lyrical observations of the world and above all his humanism, his belief in people. His letters to h

IN THE DARK CORNERS OF PRAGUE, a crazed couple plots a sinister demise for a kidnapped girl. But justice is swift in the form of a shadowy group called the Night Club. The couple meets an untimely end and the little girl is saved—just one of many innocent victims rescued by the members of the Club. It is with this group that Tobias has lived since he was an infant, and he along with his fellow crusaders help clear Prague of the worst criminals. But when an unforeseen event nearly annihilates the Night Club, Tobias is given up for dead by the survivors. Little do they know that not only is he alive, but has been reborn as a vampire. When Tobias awakes to discover his astonishing fate, he finds himself in southeastern Asia aboard a modern-day pirate ship commanded by an immortal madam

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.

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.

Slowness was Milan Kundera's first novel written in French. Disconcerted and enchanted, the reader follows him through a midsummer's night in which two tales of seduction, separated in time by more than two hundred years, interweave and oscillate between the sublime and ridiculous. As Kundera's readers would expect, Slowness is at the same time a formidable display of existential analysis. Slowness (and rapidity), discretion (and exhibitionism) are the principal concepts, and those which are to the reader like vital keys for understanding life in our contemporary world.

The Gardener's Year is a timeless classic of wit and wisdom, sure to capture the heart and imagination of every gardener--indeed, everyone who has pursued any hobby with a passion that occasionally overrides good common sense. Originally published more than fifty years ago in Czechoslovakia, it transcends the years with grace and ease. Fifty-eight sprightly drawings by the author's brother, Josef Capek, lend themselves perfectly to the artful simplicity and humor of this book

Michal Viewegh's novel Bringing Up Girls in Bohemia is the story of the young Beata Kralova and her not-so-young tutor. Beata is a 20-year-old drop-out and daughter of Denis Kral (i.e., King), a Czech "new millionaire" of dubious connections. Beata embraces lover after lover as well as causes new to Eastern Europe: the environment, animal rights, feminism, consumerism, new-age religion. This picaresque romp gives a gritty but hilarious portrait of today's Prague, its mafiosi and their ex-secret police bodyguards, the expatriate Americans, and many an extraordinary Czech, from a cremation enthusiast to a hopelessly naive sex-education teacher. The novel is also a serious exploration of the role of the writer in post-communist Central Europe. The narrator, himself an author and teacher w

This ebullient, gallivanting novel encapsulates the world vision of the Czech Republic’s best-loved author in one tumbling, breathtaking sentence. Saints and sinners, emperors and embezzlers, barmaids and balalaikas all play their part in the bawdy reminiscences of Hrabal’s cobbler as he charms an audience of young beauties.