We are excited to bring you more Czech literary classics, including contemporary ones, that are worth reading in this ongoing joint project of the Czech Centers Network and Radio Prague International, prepared by the Radio Prague International editorial staff and award-winning author Pavla Horáková.
Milan Kundera - The Joke
Milan Kundera is without question the most famous living Czech-born writer and among the nation’s most gifted thinkers. The inspiration for his first novel, The Joke, came when he was visiting friends in a mining region of Moravia and heard the story of a girl jailed for stealing flowers from a cemetery to give her boyfriend. Kundera began to imagine what life would be like – at the height of Stalinism – for a girl for whom sexuality and love were tragically discrete; of a man who seduces the wife of his old nemesis out of revenge, thereby turning the act of making love into an act of hate. The politically provocative book was a sensation in Czechoslovakia when finally published in 1967 – a year before Soviet-led tanks rolled in to crush the Prague Spring reform movement that had allowed for such a novel to be published in the Eastern Bloc country.
Learn more HERE.
Jáchym Topol - The Devil’s Workshop
The Devil’s Workshop is a short novel written by the award-winning author Jáchym Topol. It focuses on some of the darkest chapters of Europe’s history. Set partly in the wartime ghetto of Terezín and partly in Belarus, it addresses two crucial questions: How do we live with the horrors of the past and how are we supposed to commemorate them? The book, which came out in 2009 under the Czech title Chladnou zemí, was published in English in 2013 by Portobello Books, in an excellent translation by Alex Zucker.
Learn more HERE.
Karel Čapek - The White Disease
Between the two world wars, Karel Čapek was the Czech nation’s leading novelist, playwright, newspaper columnist, travel writer and critic. His most popular work during his lifetime both at home and abroad was his science fiction play ‘R.U.R.’ from 1920, which introduced the word “robot” into the English language. Čapek’s penultimate play, ‘The White Disease’ (Bílá nemoc), first performed in January 1937, was a dark satirical send-up of fascism and opportunism, set against the backdrop of a deadly pandemic. The antimilitary utopian play was as prescient then as it is topical today, in the time of coronavirus.
Learn more HERE.
Michal Viewegh - Master of satire in modern Czech literature
With more than 30 books and 1.5 million copies sold under his belt, Michal Viewegh is quite possibly the Czech Republic’s most popular contemporary author. His books have been published in 15 different languages and have also been adopted into several films. He is perhaps best known for his humorous but revealing book Bliss Was it in Bohemia (Báječná léta pod psa), which centers around the life of a family during the communist era.
Learn more HERE.
Launched in February 2020, the aim of the Radio Prague International literary series The Czech Books You Must Read is two-fold: to enumerate the classics of Czech literature and discuss their relevance in today’s world, and to introduce international audiences to leading contemporary Czech writers.
Find out more about the project, read an interview with Pavla Horáková and an essay by literary translator Tereza Novická, "Drawing Parallels between Czech and American Literature:"
