Bohumil Hrabal
Bohumil Hrabal (March 28 1914, Brno - February 3 1997, Prague) was a famous Czech writer.
Life and work
Born in Brno-Židenice, Moravia, lived shortly in Polná, raised in theNymburk brewery as the manager's step-son, 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, which inspired the "hyper-realist" texts he was writing then. His best known novel was Closely Watched Trains (1965) (Ostře sledované vlaky), which was made into a film, also titled Closely Watched Trains, by Czech director Jiří Menzel. (The film won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film.). In 1965 he bought a cottage in Kersko, where he used to go till the end of his life and had his cats ("kočenky"). He was a great storyteller; his popular pub was At the Golden Tiger (U zlatého tygra) on Husova Street in Prague, where he met Czech President Václav Havel, American President Bill Clinton and then-US ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright on 11th January 1994.
Several of his works were not published in Czechoslovakia due to objections of the authorities, including The Little Town Where Time Stood Still (Městečko, kde se zastavil čas) and I Served the King of England (Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále).
He died when he fell from a fifth floor hospital 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.
He was buried in a family grave in the cemetery in Hradištko. In the same grave his mother "Maryška", step father "Francin", uncle "Pepin", wife "Pipsi" and brother "Slávek" were buried.
He wrote with an expressive, highly visual style, often using long run-on sentences; in fact his work Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age (1964) (Taneční hodiny pro starší a pokročilé) is just one long sentence. Many of Hrabal's characters are portrayed as "wise fools" - simpletons with occasional or inadvertent profound thoughts - who are also given to coarse humour, lewdness, and a determination to survive and enjoy oneself despite harsh circumstances. Political quandaries and their concomitant moral ambiguities are also a recurrent theme.
Along with Jaroslav Hašek, Karel Čapek and Milan Kundera - who like him were imaginative and very funny satirists - he is considered one of the greatest Czech writers of the 20th century. His works have been translated into 27 languages.
Quotations
- 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 - Sourced Quote in the album "Open Season" by the UK band British Sea Power
Selected bibliography
In English
- 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 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, 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 imaginacek, 1991.
- Růžový kavalír, Prague: Pražská imaginacek, 1991.
- Aurora na mělčině, Prague: Pražská imaginacek, 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.
External links
- Bohumil Hrabal - the Close Watcher of Trains - a biography and study, with many excerpts.
- London Review of Books article on Hrabal by James Wood
- Hrabal and Prague
- Bohumil Hrabal at IMDb