Could Prague ever look any different? The Book of Prague: A City in Short Fiction edited by Ivana Myšková & Jan Zikmund.
The winner of two Magnesia Litera Awards Marek Šindelka, the book´s co-editor Jan Zikmund and writer Veronika Bendová created an anthology of short stories by the ten of city´s most famous writers, including the illustrious Bohumil Hrabal, that present Prague in a completely new light.
The son of political dissidents in Soviet-era Prague finds himself trapped in a life of low-paying jobs, like working at a local abattoir, unable to imagine his prospects ever improving…A young shop assistant in a tourist-friendly antique shop imagines what Prague would now look like if Czechoslovakia had stood up to the Nazis…
The stories collected in this anthology show Prague to be a city of myriad layers and multiple histories. Famous for its untouched, Gothic and Baroque architecture and its trapped-in-aspic charm, it is also a place that has lived through numerous traumas over the last century and learned to conceal its scars, perhaps a little too well. Just as its landmarks should be preserved, so should these hidden histories, and sometimes the best place to preserve them is in stories.
If you are interested in the publication and its authors, you can attend a discussion chaired by Ra Page, editor in chief of Comma Press at the Czech Centre at the Czech Embassy Cinema, London at 16 NOV, 19:00.