CONTEXTS - The Rough Guide to Prague - page 379

very unfunny era of the 1950s. Its clear, humorous style is far removed from the carefully
poised posturing of his most famous novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being , set in and
after 1968, and successfully turned into a film some twenty years later. Identity is a series of
slightly detached musings on the human condition and is typical of his later works. Testa-
ments Betrayed , on the other hand, is a fascinating series of essays about a range of sub-
jectsfromtheformationofhistoricalreputationtotheproblemsoftranslations.Kunderanow
writes in French.
Arnošt Lustig Diamonds of the Night; Night and Hope; A Prayer for Kateřina Horovitová;
Waiting for Leah . A Prague Jew exiled since 1968, Lustig spent World War II in Terezín,
Buchenwald and Auschwitz, and his novels and short stories are consistently set amid the
horror of the Terezín camp.
GustavMeyrink Meyrink was another of Prague's weird and wonderful characters. He star-
ted out as a bank manager but soon became involved in Kabbala, alchemy and drug experi-
mentation. The Golem , based on Rabbi Löw's monster, is one of the classic versions of the
tale. The Angel of the West Window is a historical novel about John Dee, an English alchem-
ist invited to Prague in the late sixteenth century by Rudolf II.
Jan Neruda Prague Tales . These are short, bittersweet snapshots of life in Malá Strana at
the close of the last century. The author is not to be confused with the Chilean Pablo Neruda
(who took his name from the Czech writer).
KarelPoláček What Ownership's All About . A darkly comic novel set in a Prague tenement
block, dealing with Fascism and appeasement, by a Jewish-Czech Praguer who died in the
camps in 1944.
PeterSís The Three Golden Keys .Short,hauntinglyillustrated children'sbooksetinPrague,
by Czech-born American Sís.
Josef Škvorecký A relentless anti-Communist, Škvorecký is typically Bohemian in his
bawdy sense of humour and irreverence for all high moralizing. The Cowards (which briefly
sawthelightofdayin1958)isthetaleofagroupofirresponsibleyoungmeninthelastdays
of the war, an antidote to the lofty prose from official authors at the time, but hampered by
its dated Americanized translation. The Miracle Game enjoys a better translation and is set
against the two “miracles” of 1948 and 1968. Less well known (and understandably so) are
Škvorecký's detective stories featuring a podgy, depressive Czech cop, Lieutenant Boruvka,
which he wrote in the 1960s at a time when his more serious work was banned.
ZdenaTomin Stalin's Shoe . The compelling and complex story of a girl coming to terms
with her Stalinist childhood. The Coast of Bohemia is based on Tomin's experiences of the
late 1970s dissident movement, when she was an active member of Charter 77. Although
Czech-born, Tomin writes in English (the language of her exile since 1980) and has a style
and fluency all her own.