Synopses & Reviews
Petr Král, born in Prague in 1941, was a leading member of the Czech surrealist movement, studied cinema and moved to Paris in 1968. A poet, essayist and screenwriter, he has lived in Prague since 2006. His books Working Knowledge (2008) and In Search of the Essence of Place (2012) are also published by Pushkin Press.
Synopsis
A love letter to la Serenissima that delves behind its grand façades
Synopsis
A leisurely, profound portrait of la Serenissima and a meditation on his own great love for it, by the author of In Search of the Essence of Place and Working Knowledge. No one writes as evocatively about place as Petr Král, or extracts such feeling and wisdom from it.
Synopsis
A love letter to la Serenissima that delves behind its grand façades
About the Author
Petr Králs encounter with the city of Doges is a love-letter to a place that arouses strong and often contradictory emotions - but rarely indifference. His ethereal prose carries us through the floating city as if exploring the body of a familiar, yet inscrutable, lover: "Even in the depths of her private, inner frisson, Venice is still open to the worlds great perspectives, enticing them into her secret recesses and borne along by the touch of their breath."
Králs passion for Venice enriches it as well as us, all the more so because - like all great loves - it appears to be forever on the point of dissolving. This is a portrait both intimate and universal, and elusive as the city herself.