Of Mice and Mooshaber
- 300 pages
- 11 hours of reading
Offers an unsettling comic analysis of the psychological experience of oppression set in an unnamed, futuristic Central European setting. --Adapted from publisher description
Ladislav Fuks Books
24 settembre 1923 – 19 agosto 1994
Ladislav Fuks was a Czech prose writer, renowned for his psychological fiction that delves into human anxiety when confronted by oppression and violence. He frequently employs World War II and the Holocaust as potent symbols within his narratives. Much of his work carries an autobiographical undercurrent, exploring the sensitive, introverted boy yearning for connection, a recurring figure that mirrors his own life. Fuks masterfully utilizes masks, allusions, and intricate games with his readers, often subtly commenting on the era in which he wrote.
Mr. Theodore Mundstock
- 223 pages
- 8 hours of reading
1969, mass market paperback reprint edition, in English (translated from the Czech), Ballantine, NY. 223 pages. "This title will haunt you long after you finish reading it ... a beautifully written book."
“The devil’s neatest trick is to persuade us that he doesn’t exist.” It is a maxim that both rings true in our contemporary world and pervades this tragicomic novel of anxiety and evil set amid the horrors of World War II. As a gay man living in a totalitarian, patriarchal society, noted Czech writer Ladislav Fuks identified with the tragic fate of his Jewish countrymen during the Holocaust. The Cremator arises from that shared experience. Fuks presents a grotesque, dystopian world in which a dutiful father, following the strict logic of his time, liberates the souls of his loved ones by destroying their bodies—first the dead, then the living. As we watch this very human character—a character who never ceases to believe that he is doing good—become possessed by an inhuman ideology, the evil that initially permeates the novel’s atmosphere concretizes in this familiar family man. A study of the totalitarian mindset with stunning resonance for today, The Cremator is a disturbing, powerful work of literary horror.
Reise ins gelobte Land
- 148 pages
- 6 hours of reading
Tři prózy
- 446 pages
- 16 hours of reading
Šedesátá léta představovala v tvorbě Ladislava Fukse (1923–1994) nejproduktivnější dekádu, z níž Česká knižnice vybírá tři reprezentativní, čtenářsky velmi oblíbené prózy. Autorův literární debut Pan Theodor Mundstock (1963), v němž Fuks vylíčil úzkostný vnitřní svět duševně vyšinutého člověka vyrovnávajícího se s obludností nastupujícího fašismu, následuje panoptikálně hororový Spalovač mrtvol (1967), kterého proslavila filmová adaptace Juraje Herze, a doplňuje mrazivě groteskní Cesta do zaslíbené země (1969). Doprovodný komentář sleduje vývoj Fuksovy poetiky s důrazem na kontext druhé světové války a rozličné uchopení tematiky šoa.
