Cave Baradla

Fiction. Translated from the Czech by Gwendolyn Albert. BARADLA CAVE is a novel by the Czech Surrealist Eva Svankmajerova, perhaps best known for her paintings and collaboration with her husband Jan Svankmajer on a number of films; this book includes illustrations by the pair. Originally published in samizdat (i.e. passed hand to hand in cheaply printed editions and against Communist law) in the 1980s, BARADLA CAVE was republished in 1995 by Edice Analogon, having lost none of the force of its social critique and wit. Baradla is a living organism, both a place (Prague) and a person (a woman), and the novel explores maternity and femininity while offering a satirical look at the overweening mother-state and consumer society.