Racconti di Malá Strana e altre storie praghesi
A new translation into Italian of a Czech literary classic: “Povídky Malostranské” (1878) by the Czech writer and poet Jan Neruda is being issued. The volume, edited by Alena Wildová Tosi and translated by Annalisa Cosentino, contains the most beautiful stories of Neruda’s famous collection, in which the reader will be able to rediscover the unforgettable characters, such as the noble beggar Vojtíšek, the merchant Vorel with his pipe, and the weepy lady Ruska. The book contains other writings by Neruda that had never been published in Italian before now. Of this masterpiece of Czech literature, Claudio Magris has written: “Jan Neruda’s stories are a light and discreet summa of the recurring motifs of all posterior Prague literature: a mix of humor and compassion, understanding and love of others, buried under rough quips (…), the everyday deeds of our petty life that seems to dwell on the modest or comic details, and yet embraces, in that concrete aspect, the sense and breath of history”.
Alena Wildová Tosi (edited by),
Racconti di Malá Strana e altre storie praghesi,
Marsilio: 2014,
198 pp.
Le macchine entrano nelle navi
Petr Hruška, born in 1964, is a Czech poet, screenwriter, literary critic and member of the Department of Czech Literature at the Academy of Sciences in the Czech Republic. His work “Auta vjíždějí do lodí” (2007) (Cars enter the Ship), has been translated into Italian by the publishing house “Valigie Rosse”. Although it does not deal with political issues, Hruška could not publish it during the “normalization” years. According to the regime his poetry was too crude and earnest. In this anthology, winner of the Ciampi 2014 award, “Its components unwind with great story-telling power, that is able to break into evocative lyrical synthesis and mimic the chatter of contemporary cities, with the stifling contamination of clichés and a profound solitude. With a sort of delicate crudeness of highlights and details, Hruška often reminds the reader of the defenceless impetus of certain images of Piero Ciampi. This phenomenal and sparkling book is strongly “ciampian”, it delves into the living and inconsistent reticulate, which is humankind”.
Petr Hruška,
Le macchine entrano nelle navi,
Valigie Rosse: 2014,
24 pp.
Praga al tempo di Kafka. Una guida culturale
The publishing house Lindau has just re-published a new edition of an intelligent book on Prague that will surely be useful to those who – beyond the suggestions offered by a certain type of literature on the “Magic Town” – wish to delve into the past history and culture of the Bohemian capital. We are referring to the book “Praga al tempo di Kafka. Una guida culturale”, by Patrizia Runfola, issued for the first time in 1990. In this literary work, on the thread of an intense and suggestive story, Runfola relives a particular moment in the history of Prague: the years of Kafka, a central period for the history of European literature, which took place in literary circles, on the streets and in the cafes of Prague, that was then a melting pot of languages, cultures and traditions. Kafka, Max Brod, the Čapek brothers, Jaroslav Hašek and Gustav Meyrink are just a few of the protagonists of this unforgettable story, the image of a dissolute world that will soon succumb to the madness of a world war and other sad historical events.
Patrizia Runfola,
Praga al tempo di Kafka. Una guida culturale,
Lindau: 2014,
280 pp.
Hašek – Opere
On the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War and in the prestigious series of “I Meridiani” by Mondadori, a new volume has just been published with the works of the Czech writer Jaroslav Hašek, who owes his fame mainly to the satirical novel “The adventures of the good soldier Švejk during the Great War” (1921-1923), a masterpiece of twentieth century European literature, that has been translated all over the world. The precious volume, edited by Annalisa Cosentino, professor of Czech Language and Literature at the University of Rome, aims to report on the intense and varied literary activity of Hašek and, in addition to the well-known novel, also contains a selection of short stories produced by the author from 1902 to 1922, as well as a few of his early works and more. It is also enriched with a substantial set of critical notes on the text. Considered as a rather eccentric and anarchic character, and a frequent visitor to the taverns in Prague, Hašek, who went to war in 1915 was taken prisoner by the Russians, and on his return to Prague in December 1920, wrote his unfinished masterpiece.
Annalisa Cosentino (edited by),
Hašek – Opere,
Mondadori: 2014,
1519 pp.