A Bohemian Youth (Writings From An Unbound Europe)

A Bohemian Youth (Writings From An Unbound Europe)

Josef Hirsal, Michael Henry Heim (Translated by)
$19.95
Publication Date: December 29th, 1997
Publisher:
Northwestern University Press
ISBN:
9780810115927
Pages:
85

Description

Winner, 1998 PEN Center USA West Award for Translation

Josef Hiršal's experimental novel is a Dada-like romp through the life of a young man born into a Bohemian peasant family. Told in five parts, A Bohemian Youth begins with a word to the wise, moves on to the text, continues with notes and with notes to the note, and ends with a note on the notes to the notes.

More than just a tongue-in-cheek parody of a literary memoir, A Bohemian Youth is a glimpse of the First Czechoslovak Republic as seen through the eyes of a young peasant from the provinces. Abounding in intimate details--the manners of a servant girl, the habits of the town homosexual, the sounds of popular music; the way people eat in wartime—Hiršal's novel is a wrenching and hilarious tale of a young man's emotional and sexual awakening.

About the Author

JOSEF HIRŠAL (1920–2003) was born in Chomutičky in northeastern Bohemia. He became known in the 1960s as a poet and translator and was blacklisted after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

MICHAEL HENRY HEIM (1943–2012) was a professor of Slavic languages and literatures at UCLA. His translations of Dubravka Ugrešić's Fording the Stream of Consciousness and Felix Roziner's A Certain Finkelmeyer have also been published by Northwestern University Press.

Praise for A Bohemian Youth (Writings From An Unbound Europe)

"More than just a tongue- in-cheek parody of a literary memoir . . . it is a social history of the first rank . . ." —Translation Review

". . . That rare postmodern experiment which actually remembers to tell a story . . . a splendidly original achievement." —The New Yorker

"An inventive and clever parody of the coming-of-age tale . . . the result is nostalgic, agreeably sexy, and quite charming." —Kirkus Reviews

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