The Book of Hrabal
ABOUT
THE BOOK
An elaborate, elegant homage to the great Czech storyteller Bohumil Hrabal (author of Closely Watched Trains), The Book of Hrabal is also a farewell to the years of communism in Eastern Europe and a glowing paean to the mixed blessings of domestic life. Anna, blues-singing housewife and mother of three, addresses her reminiscences and reflections to Hrabal. They swing from domestic matters, to accounts of the injustices suffered by her family during the Stalinist 1950s and the police harassment in subsequent years, to her husband’s crazy ideas. He frets over his current project, a book celebrating Hrabal, but seems unable to write it. Meanwhile, two angels, undercover as secret policemen, shadow the household-communicating via walkie-talkie-to prevent Anna from aborting her fourth child. God himself (aka Bruno) enters the scene; he chats with Hrabal, takes saxophone lessons from an irreverent Charlie Parker (unfortunately even this doesn’t cure his tone-deaf ear), and tries to play the saxophone to dissuade her from ending the pregnancy.
ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Judith
Sollosy
Judith Sollosy is the translator of contemporary Hungarian authors Péter Esterházy, Mihály Kornis, Lajos Parti Nagy, and István Örkény. She is senior editor at Corvina Books, Budapest, and teaches translation studies and creative writing at ELTE (Budapest University). Her most recent translations include Péter Esterházy’s Celestial Harmonies (2004) and Not Art (2010). Her book on translation, Hunglish Into English. The Elements of Translation from Hungarian Into English, was published last year. She is a graduate of Barnard College, Columbia University, and the State University of New York at Buffalo.
Judith Sollosy is the translator of contemporary Hungarian authors Péter Esterházy, Mihály Kornis, Lajos Parti Nagy, and István Örkény. She is senior editor at Corvina Books, Budapest, and teaches translation studies and creative writing at ELTE (Budapest University). Her most recent translations include Péter Esterházy’s Celestial Harmonies (2004) and Not Art (2010). Her book on translation, Hunglish Into English. The Elements of Translation from Hungarian Into English, was published last year. She is a graduate of Barnard College, Columbia University, and the State University of New York at Buffalo.