Bohumil Hrabal

He received a Law degree from Charles University in Prague, but after that worked mostly as a manual laborer; all of these experiences became sources of inspiration for his texts full of the grotesque ordeals of life, and credible, non-pathetic characters, all typically Czech.

He did not enter the world of literature until the 1950s. After several surrealist and expressionist attempts, he published his most political book, Inzerát na dùm, ve kterém už nechci bydlet.

After 1968 and during the era of normalization, Hrabal was mostly prevented from publishing, and the books he did release were censored. Nevertheless, his books found their way to readers, coming out in Samizdat and abroad, though most were published years after the author finished writing them.

Hrabal’s short stories and novels set out the path of Czech prose both thematically and idiomatically. Among his most important works are the existential books Příiš hlučná samota (Too Loud a Solitude) and Nìžný barbar. His narratives inspired a group of young film directors; Juraj Herz, Vìra Chytilová, Jiøí Menzel, and Jan Nìmec made films based on Hrabal’s texts, thus starting the “new wave” of Czech film.

Bohumil Hrabal is an outstanding figure of Czech postwar prose. Able to ignore the demands of contemporary literature, he had created his own world of imagination and set himself free from ideological stereotypes.

Bohumil Hrabal died in 1997.