seitens der Städte.. PRAHA: Bohumil Hrabal

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Bohumil Hrabal (Czech pronunciation: [ˈboɦumɪl ˈɦrabal])

(March 28, 1914, Brno - February 3, 1997, Prague) was a famous Czech writer.

Born in Brno-Židenice, Moravia, he lived briefly in Polná, but was raised in the Nymburk brewery as the manager's stepson. Hrabal received a Law degree from Prague's Charles University, and lived in the city from the late 1940s on. He lived at 24 Na Hrázi Street in Prague - Libeň; the house does not exist any more. He worked as a manual laborer alongside Vladimír Boudník in the Kladno ironworks in the 1950s, an experience which inspired the "hyper-realist" texts he was writing at the time.

His two best known novels were Closely Watched Trains (Ostre sledované vlaky) (1965) and I Served the King of England (Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále), both of which were made into movies by the Czech director, Jirí Menzel (1966 and 2006, respectively). In 1965 he bought a cottage in Kersko, which he used to visit till the end of his life, and where he kept cats. He was a great storyteller; his favorite pub was At the Golden Tiger (U zlatého tygra) on Husova Street in Prague, where he met the Czech President Václav Havel, the American President Bill Clinton and the then-US ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright on January 11, 1994.

Several of his works were not published officially in Czechoslovakia until the end of communism due to the objections of the authorities, including The Little Town Where Time Stood Still (Městečko, kde se zastavil čas) and I Served the King of England.

He died when he fell from a window on the fifth floor of the Bulovka hospital in Prague where he was apparently trying to feed pigeons. It was noted that Hrabal lived on the fifth floor of his apartment building and that suicides by leaping from a fifth-floor window were mentioned in several of his books.[

citation needed] He was buried in his family's crypt in a cemetery in Hradištko.

He wrote in an expressive, highly visual style. He affected the use of obtrusively long sentences; in fact his work, Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age (Taneční hodiny pro starší a pokročilé) (1964) consists of a single sentence. Political quandaries and their concomitant moral ambiguities are a recurrent theme. Many of Hrabal's characters are portrayed as "wise fools" - simpletons with occasional inadvertently profound thoughts - who are also given to coarse humour, lewdness, and a determination to survive and enjoy oneself despite harsh circumstances.

Much of impact of Hrabal's writing derives from his juxtaposition of the beauty and cruelty found in everyday life. Excruciatingly vivid depictions of pain human beings casually inflict on animals (as in the scene where families of mice are caught in a paper compactor) symbolize the pervasiveness of cruelty among human beings. The adult human world is revealed as terrifying, and, in the end, perhaps the only sane philosophy is a line delivered in Closely Watched Trains: "You should have stayed home on your arse". His characterizations also can be comic, giving his prose a Baroque/Medieval tinge.

Along with Jaroslav Hašek, Karel Čapek and Milan Kundera — likewise imaginative and amusing satirists — he is considered one of the greatest Czech writers of the 20th century. His works have been translated into 27 languages.

It's interesting how young poets think of death while old fogies think of girls. — Bohumil Hrabal in Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age
Bohumil Hrabal embodies as no other the fascinating Prague. He couples people's humor to baroque imagination. — Milan Kundera.
To spend our days betting on three-legged horses with beautiful names — Bohumil Hrabal [1]
Closely Watched Trains, translated by Edith Pargeter with a foreword by Josef Škvorecký, Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1995

Cutting It Short; The Little Town Where Time Stood Still, London: Abacus, 1993
Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age, New York: Harcourt Brace, 1995
The Death of Mr Baltisberger, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975
Closely Observed Trains: A Film by Jiří Menzel and Bohumil Hrabal, London: Lorrimer Publishing Ltd, 1971
Closely Watched Trains: A Film, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1971
I Served the King of England, translated by Paul Wilson New York: Vintage International, 1990
Too Loud a Solitude, translated by Michael Henry Heim, San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990
Total Fears: Letters to Dubenka, translated by James Naughton, Prague: Twisted Spoon Press, 1998
In House Weddings
"Pirouettes on a Postage Stamp." translated by David Short
[edit] In Czech (first editions)
Ztracená ulička, Nymburk: Hrádek, 1948
Perlička na dne, Prague: CS, 1963.
Pábitelé, Prague: MF, 1964.
Taneční hodiny pro starší a pokročilé, Prague: CS, 1964.
Ostře sledované vlaky, Prague: CS, 1965.
Inzerát na dům, ve kterém už nechci bydlet. Prague: MF, 1965.
Morytáty a legendy, Prague: CS, 1968.
Domácí úkoly, Úvahy a rozhovory. Prague: MF, 1970.
Poupata, Prague: MF, 1970, confiscated and burnt by the Communist regime
Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále, Prague: Petlice, 1971 (secret anti-Communist publishing house)
Něžný barbar, Prague: Petlice, 1973 (secret anti-Communist publishing house); Exile edition: Index, Koeln, 1981.
Postřižiny, Prague: Petlice, 1974 (secret anti-Communist publishing house)
Městečko, kde se zastavil čas, Prague: Petlice, 1974 (secret anti-Communist publishing house); Exile Edition: Comenius, Innsbruck, 1978.
Příliš hlučná samota (Too Loud a Solitude), Prague: Ceska expedice 1977 (secret anti-Communist publishing house); Exile edition: Index, Koeln, 1980.
Slavnosti sněženek, Prague: CS, 1978.
Krasosmutnění, Prague: CS, 1979.
Harlekýnovy milióny, Prague: CS, 1981.
Kluby poezie, Prague: MF, 1981.
Domácí úkoly z pilnosti, Prague: MF, 1982.
Život bez smokingu, Prague: CS, 1986.
Svatby v domě, Prague: Pražská imaginace, 1986 (secret anti-Communist publishing house); Exile edition: 68 Publishers, Toronto, 1987.
Vita nuova, Prague: Pražská imaginace, 1986 (secret anti-Communist publishing house); Exile edition: 68 Publishers, Toronto, 1987.
Proluky, Prague: Petlice, 1986 (secret anti-Communist publishing house) Exile edition: 68 Publishers, Toronto, 1986.
Kličky na kapesníku, Prague: Pražská imaginace, 1987 (secret anti-Communist publishing house)
Listopadový uragán, Prague: Tvorba, 1990.
Ponorné říčky, Prague: Pražská imaginace, 1991.
Růžový kavalír, Prague: Pražská imaginace, 1991.
Aurora na mělčině, Prague: Pražská imaginace, 1992.
Večerníčky pro Cassia, Prague: Pražská imaginace, 1993.
Atomová mašina značky Perkeo, sc, Prace, 1991
Bambino di Praga; Barvotisky; Krásná Poldi, Praha: Československý spisovatel, 1990
Básnění, Praha: Pražská imaginace, 1991
Bibliografie dodatky rejstříky, Praha: Pražská imaginace, 1997
Buďte tak hodná, vytáhněte rolety: výbor z milostné korespondence, Praha: Triton, 1999
Chcete vidět Zlatou Prahu?: výbor z povídek, Praha: Mladá fronta, 1989
Já si vzpomínám jen a jen na slunečné dny, Nymburk: S Klos, 1998
Complete works edition in 19 volumes was published in the '90s by Pražská imaginace



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