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In-Depth Information
age just after the war. Dominika Dery's The Twelve Little Cakes is a
delightful memoir of her childhood (spent near Prague) at the end
of communism in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Surprisingly, the
1990s were not a very exciting time for Czech literature. The one
exception, and the definitive book of the 1989 generation, is Jáchym
Topol's Sister . Topol captures “the years after the Time exploded”
in a rich mixture of colloquial Czech that's full of German and
English loanwords and neologisms. The English translation is
excellent.
The Nobel Prize-winning poet Jaroslav Seifert experi-
enced during his long life all the diverse movements of the 20th
century—Dadaism, Surrealism, communism, anti-communism—
and created a medium of his own, in which everyone finds a poem
to his or her own liking.
The Czech film tradition has always been strong, and the
1960s were its heyday, giving birth to Jiří Menzel's Closely Watched
Tra i n s and Larks on the String; Ivan Passer's Intimate Lighting; and
Miloš Forman's Firemen's Ball and Loves of a Blonde. After his 1968
escape from communist Czechoslovakia, Forman made it big in
the US with films such as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and
Amadeus .
Two Czech filmmakers made a mark on the international
stage in the 1990s: Jan Svěrák ( (The Elementary School and the Oscar-
winning Kolya ) and Jiří Hřebejk ( Divided We Fall, nominated for
an Oscar). More recently, Vít Klusák and Filip Remunda created
a sensation with their hilarious, original, and disturbing docu-
mentary, Czech Dream, about the opening of a fake hypermarket
invented and massively advertised by the directors themselves.
One of the most inspiring Czech artists is painter, animator,
director, and surrealist Jan Švankmajer. His Something from Alice,
Lesson Faust, and Food combine all of the author's artistic skills
into a highly original style that is guaranteed to change the way
you look at the world. His two most recent ilms— Little Otík and
Mad— blend in more realism.
The Czechs have a wonderful animation tradition that suc-
cessfully competes with Walt Disney in Eastern Europe and
China. Pat a Mat, Krteček (The Little Mole), or Maxipes Fík are
intelligent gifts to bring to your little ones at home.
teLephones, emaiL, and maiL
Telephones
Smart travelers learn the phone system and use it daily to reserve
or reconfirm rooms, get tourist information, reserve restaurants,
confirm tour times, or phone home.
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