Mr. Kafka: And Other Tales from the Time of the Cult (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780811224802)

Never before published in English, the stories in Mr. Kafka and Other Tales from the Time of the Cult were written mostly in the 1950s and present the Czech master Bohumil Hrabal at the height of his powers. The stories capture a time when Czech Stalinists were turning society upside down, inflicting their social and political experiments on mostly unwilling subjects. These stories are set variously in the gas-lit streets of post-war Prague; on the raucous and dangerous factory floor of the famous Poldi steelworks where Hrabal himself once worked; in a cacophonous open-air dance hall where classical and popular music come to blows; at the basement studio where a crazed artist attempts to fashion a national icon; on the scaffolding around a decommissioned church. Hrabal captures men and women trapped in an eerily beautiful nightmare, longing for a world where "humor and metaphysical escape can reign supreme."

Author: Bohumil Hrabal
ISBN-10: 0811224805
ISBN-13: 9780811224802
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Language: English
Published: 10/27/2015
Pages: 160
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.30lbs
Size: 7.90h x 5.10w x 0.40d

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 08/17/2015
Kirkus Reviews 08/15/2015 pg. 79
New York Times Book Review 01/17/2016 pg. 27