Eva Profousová Book order

A brutally funny, carnivalesque novel about love, death, and survival, from the Czech Republic's greatest living author Tab, an itinerant Czech actor, travels around Europe on the theater circuit with his partner, Sońa, and their two young sons, attending festivals and performing plays. Confronted with growing resentment toward foreigners, Tab decides to return home to the banks of the Sázava River southeast of Prague. No sooner has he arrived than Tab finds himself falsely accused of a terrible crime and forced to go on the run with his two sons. Over the course of their peregrinations, dodging authorities by car, foot, and raft, they encounter a motley cast of allies and enemies. Tab's sudden reappearance and just-as-sudden disappearance ripple through the community, catalyzing a chaotic chain of events that reaches a final, raucous crescendo. Hailed as "a picaresque romp of black humor and fantasy" (Times Literary Supplement), this is an unforgettable novel about finding the sparks of humanity even in the bleakest of places, in which love or the longing to find it lie around every bend.

Ein Aufbruch hat immer ein Ende. Die Revolution der 90er Jahre, die Prag in eine große Party verwandelte, ist vorbei. Im Spätsommer wird das Licht schwach und träge. Für fünf Menschen wird nichts mehr so sein wie zuvor. Zwischen Straßenbahnlärm und dem Techno des Herzens, zwischen Lichteffekten und Rockmusik, findet ein Konzert der Stille statt, das alles verändert. Petr, der von seiner großen Liebe verlassen wurde, arbeitet nach einem abgebrochenen Studium als Straßenbahnhelfer. Auf einer seiner Fahrten trifft er die Punkerin Vanda, die sich vorgenommen hat, mit 18 das Koksen aufzugeben – nur noch ein Monat bleibt. Der erfolgreiche Anwalt Wayne hat sein Leben im Griff, bis er glaubt, in den Nachrichten seinen blutüberströmten Bruder aus dem Irak zu erkennen, was ihn aus der Bahn wirft. Hana, die im Flieger nach Prag sitzt, ist nicht bereit, ihn aufzufangen. Zudem kämpft der alte Vladimír, der seine Frau verloren hat, gegen den Lärm, den er als Ursache allen Übels sieht, und widmet sein Leben dem Streben nach Stille. Jaroslav Rudiš erzählt mit Eleganz und Coolness von Menschen, die von Hoffnung, Liebe und Einsamkeit getrieben werden – und manchmal auch vom Leben selbst.

Fleischman, il personaggio principale del “romanzo sopra le nuvole”, è un trentenne solitario, rimasto orfano da ragazzino. La sua vita è un fallimento. Non è mai riuscito in nulla. Non ha mai neppure lasciato la sua città, Liberec, nei Sudeti, al confine ceco-tedesco. Non ha mai avuto una ragazza. Ma Fleischman comprende le nuvole, le alte e le basse pressioni e le direzioni dei venti, gli effetti dei fronti caldi e freddi. La sua vita è un diagramma in cui annota il tempo atmosferico e lo scorrere del tempo. Fleischman, che non conosce nemmeno il suo nome proprio, è il tuttofare del Grandhotel di Ještěd, l’avveniristico e gigantesco hotel rotondo a forma di astronave (realmente esistente) che sovrasta la città. In questo luogo magico, sospeso tra la terra e il suo amato cielo si rende conto che troverà una via d’uscita dalla sua città e dalla sua stessa vita solo attraverso le nuvole. Nei suoi piani irrompe la cameriera Ilja, che un giorno arriva come un’apparizione alla reception dell’hotel. Ma la decisione di lasciare la città ad ogni costo non è più reversibile, e la fuga non può che essere verso il cielo, in mongolfiera…

Over a generous time span, this book follows the varied lives of several high-school classmates, from their teenage growing pains to their early forties. Connoisseurs of the work of the current most popular Czech author will find intact his familiar style (the slightly melancholic grotesque), in a tale which describes, with irony and delicate nostalgia, friendship, teenage confusion, love and destiny, including dreams and hopes, first loves and marriage, disappointment and disillusion, failure and personal tragedy, not to mention the impact on life of alcohol, beauty and ugliness, and above all the sadness that slowly penetrates the lives of the characters as they age. Dodgeball is one of its author’s most successful novels, whether in terms of numbers of copies sold or the responses of critics, including some from abroad, or readers. Over 200,000 copies have been sold in the Czech Republic alone, and it has already become available in twelve other languages, including German, Spanish, Italian and Russian. It has won the Magnesia Litera Readers’ Prize and in 2015 it was turned into a successful feature film under the same title. Following Bringing up Girls in Bohemia and Bliss was it in Bohemia, this is the third of the author’s novels to appear in English translation.

Autobiografická kniha nás zavádí do současného Berlína, města, které i téměř po třinácti letech od svého spojení je stále pomyslně rozdělené na východ a západ. Hlavní hrdina, mladý učitel, prchá z Prahy do současné německé metropole, kde potká přítele, s nímž zakládá rockovou skupinu U-Bahn pojmenovanou podle berlínské podzemní dráhy. Právě v metru sleduje a zaznamenává dojmy a příběhy lidí, jež ho inspirují k psaní textů pro kapelu. 2. vydání