This is an appraisal od some of the best Czech fiction of the 20th century. After a brief introduction there are chapters on Hasek, Hrabal, Skorecky, Pavel, Klima and a final chapter on Hodrova, Viewegh and Topol.

Scholars of state socialism have frequently invoked “nostalgia” to identify an uncritical longing for the utopian ambitions and lived experience of the former Eastern Bloc. However, this concept seems insufficient to describe memory cultures in the Czech Republic and other contexts in which a “retro” fascination with the past has proven compatible with a steadfast critique of the state socialist era. This innovative study locates a distinctively retro aesthetic in Czech literature, film, and other cultural forms, enriching our understanding of not only the nation’s memory culture, but also the ways in which popular culture can structure collective memory.

This stimulating compilation of essays and images reveals an essential and valuable component of Czech contributions to the world of modern theatre heretofore largely unseen outside the country itself. Featuring the craft of twenty-seven of the best stage and costume designers of the twentieth century, Joe Brandesky supplies ample evidence of their consistently high quality and dynamic creativity, survival skills for a people whose national identity had been dismantled during many years of occupation and repression. Essays by Vera Ptacková, Dennis Christilles, Delbert Unruh, and, Marie Zdenková their full texts restored and reedited for this volume since their initial publication in exhibit catalogs, provide historical and linguistic insights into contemporary Czech scenography as well as comparisons to the major art movements affecting the designers. Brandesky’s informative introductory essay contextualizes the shifting tenets of Czech theatre design. Also included are biographies of the designers, a bibliography, and thirty black-and-white photographs. The accompanying CD provides access to the vibrant and sophisticated images of the Czech theatrical world: 138 richly colorful paintings and drawings of costumes, models, and set designs and in situ photos of exhibited designs plus 27 color and black-and-white photos of the designers. The CD also includes the full text of the book with links to all the art and to the designers’ biographies. Book and CD together showcase the Czech Republic as a center of international stage design.

Tracing the Great War through the Millennium Bug, 1999 through 1900, Dadaism through Scientology through Sierra Leonean bicycle riding and back, award-winning Czech author Patrik Ourednik explores the horror and absurdity of the twentieth century in an explosive deconstruction of historical memory. Europeana: A Brief History of the Twentieth Century opens on the beaches of Normandy in 1944, comparing the heights of different forces’ soldiers and considering how tall, long, or good at fertilizing fields the men’s bodies will be. Probing the depths of humanity and inhumanity, this is an account of history as it has never been told: “engaging, even frightening.” At once recreating and uncreating the twentieth century, Ourednik explores the connections across the decades between the disparate figures, events, and politics we thought we knew. Patrik Ourednik’s Europeana merits the author’s reputation as a giant of post-1989 Czech literature. Now translated into 33 languages, the book is a masterwork of cubism, a polymorphic monologue of statistics and movements and fine print and discoveries that evokes the deadpan absurdity of Kafka and the gallows humor of Hašek. Ourednik has created a mesmerizing, maddening account of the past, and his interrogation of “truth” and objectivity resonates now more than ever.