Why Czech books?

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Why Czech books?

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1benpass4 Första inlägget
maj 30, 2007, 7:23 am

How or why Czech books? What drew you to Czech literature?

For me, it was because I am an anthropologist who works in the region. I found that everything and everyone I encountered was informed by the national arts especially the literature and photography. I had read most everything by Kundera already but I have since come to be an enormous fan of Hrabal and Klima as well.

2Gypsy_Boy
Redigerat: aug 4, 2008, 2:29 pm

A good, if hard, question. I can no longer recall the first book of Czech lit I read for the simple reason that I probably didn't think of it as "Czech." I have long been interested in Eastern/Central Europe and have enjoyed books/authors from throughout the region. From time to time I wonder why that is, and I suspect that part of the reason is that I find the attitude and interests of the books/authors compatible with mine. That is not to say, certainly, that I've enjoyed all of the books equally, but by and large, they often seem to share a feeling, a certain something.... My most recent favorite Czech discovery is actually a 19th century writer--has anyone else read Jan Neruda's Prague Tales?

3masterkidderminster
mar 28, 2008, 7:52 am

I read Jan Neruda's Povidky Malostranske in simplified Czech when I was over in Prague teaching English for a couple of years and I'd really love to graduate up to the real thing. I've really got to start putting more effort into my Czech, which is pretty good, but I haven't done much with it since coming back to the UK. My girlfriend is Czech and we speak Czech all the time, but It's too easy to fall into Czenglish - copping out of difficult words and passages by slipping into English, say.

Recently, I have been reading a few graphic novels translated into Czech, David B's Padoucnice and Marjane Satrapiova's Persepolis books, say, and I have read the Bily Potok books, but I haven't read any Czech authors in Czech for some time.

Perhaps I'll get on to that now. In fact, my girlfriend has just come back from Prague armed with magazines and newspapers, so, I may go and take a look.

ps. For those tackling the Czech language I do recommend Czech Step by Step's adapted Povidky Malostranske as well as Jaroslav Rudis and Jaromir 99's Alois Nebel series and any other graphic noves you can get your hands on.

4DaveHardy
aug 3, 2008, 9:06 pm

Living in Prague drew me to Czech writers. Though I must confess to a partiality to Kafka during my high school years.

5Eurydice
aug 4, 2008, 4:08 am

Purely difference. I was curious, and wanted to read foreign books from someplace in Europe interesting, full of cultural richness, yet less absolutely canonical than French, German, Spanish.... And then, reading them, I was struck with love. There's something about the tone of the handful of Czech books I have read that really strikes a chord of sympathy. While the Eastern European exploration needs to go further than it has, so far, in other areas, Czech literature is a definite, more lasting interest.