Synopses & Reviews
"Czechoslovakia's greatest living writer." Milan Kundera
In this moving, absorbing novel, we meet the eccentric residents of a home for the elderly who reminisce about their lives and their changing country. Written with a keen eye for the absurd and peppered with dialogue that captures the poignancy of the everyday, Harlequin's Millions is a sensual delight.
Bohumil Hrabal (19141997) worked as a railway dispatcher during the Nazi occupation of then-Czechoslovakia, a traveling salesman, a steelworker, a recycling mill worker, and a stagehand. His novels were censored under the Communist regime and have since been translated into nearly thirty languages.
Review
Praise for
I Served the King of England :
"A comic novel of great inventiveness ... charming, wise, and sadand an unexpectedly good laugh."
&mdashPhiladelphia Inquirer
"A joyful, picaresque story, which begins with Baron Munchausen-like adventures and ends in tears and solitude."
&mdash James Wood, The London Review of Books
"An extraordinary and subtly tragicomic novel." &mdashThe New York Times
Praise for The Little Town Where Time Stood Still :
"Glorious ... Hrabal combines good humour and hilarity with tenderness and a tragic sense of his country's history"
&mdashThe Observer
"There are pages of queer magic unlike anything else currently being done with words." &mdashThe Guardian
"Hrabal is a most sophisticated novelist, with a gusting humour and a hushed tenderness of detail." &mdash Julian Barnes
"Hrabal fills his pages with humanity and enchantment." &mdashThe Times (London)
"Enchanting." &mdashTime Out
Synopsis
A poignant, very funny novel full of unforgettable characters who reminisce about their changing country.
Synopsis
Bohumil Hrabal (1914-1997) worked as a railway dispatcher during the Nazi occupation of then-Czechoslovakia, a traveling salesman, a steelworker, a recycling mill worker, and a stagehand. His novels, which include Too Loud a Solitude, Closely Watched Trains, and I Served the King of England, were censored under the Communist regime and have since been translated into nearly thirty languages. He fell to his death from the fifth floor of a Prague hospital, apparently trying to feed the pigeons. The author lives in Czech Republic.
About the Author
Bohumil Hrabal: Bohumil Hrabal was born in 1914 in the Czech Republic and died in 1997. He is widely regarded as one of the best writers of the 20th century.
Stacey Knecht: Stacey Knecht lives in the Netherlands. She is the translator of Marcel Moring's The Dream Room, The Great Longing, and In Babylon; Anke de Vries's Bruises; and Lieve Joris's Back to the Congo. She is the editor-in-chief of the literary website The Ledge: http://www.the-ledge.com/HTML/index.php?ID=&lan=uk