A Czech Dreambook
Format: Hardcover
ISBN13: 9788024638522
Hardcover|9788024638522
✨ Featured Offer
Brand New
$43.83
List Price: $27.00
🚚
See all 5 offers from $27.38 FREE standard delivery by: 02 Apr 2026
Overview
It's 1979 in Communist Czechoslovakia, ten years into the crushing period known as normalization, and Ludvík Vaculík has writer's block. It has been nearly a decade since he wrote his powerful novel, The Guinea Pigs, and it was in 1968 that he wrote his anti-regime manifesto, Two Thousand Words, which the Soviet Union used as a pretext for invading Czechoslovakia. On the advice of his friend, the poet and surrealist painter Jiří Kolář, Vaculík begins to keep a diary, "a book about things, people, and events." This marks the beginning of A Czech Dreambook.
Fifty-four weeks later, what Vaculík turns out to have written is a unique mixture of diary, dream journal, and outright fiction--an inverted roman à clef in which the author, his family, his mistresses, and the real leaders of the Czech underground play major roles. Undisputedly the most debated novel among the Prague dissident community of the 1980s, it is a work that Vaculík himself described as an amalgam of "hard-boiled documentary" and "magic fiction," while Václav Havel called it "a truly profound and perceptive account. . . . A great novel about modern life and the crisis of contemporary humanity."
A Czech Dreambook has been hailed as the most important work of Czech literature in the past forty years. And yet it has never before been available in English. Flawlessly translated by Gerald Turner, Vaculík's masterpiece is a brilliant exercise in style, dry humor, and irony--an important portrait of the lives and longings of the dissidents and post-Communist elites.
Fifty-four weeks later, what Vaculík turns out to have written is a unique mixture of diary, dream journal, and outright fiction--an inverted roman à clef in which the author, his family, his mistresses, and the real leaders of the Czech underground play major roles. Undisputedly the most debated novel among the Prague dissident community of the 1980s, it is a work that Vaculík himself described as an amalgam of "hard-boiled documentary" and "magic fiction," while Václav Havel called it "a truly profound and perceptive account. . . . A great novel about modern life and the crisis of contemporary humanity."
A Czech Dreambook has been hailed as the most important work of Czech literature in the past forty years. And yet it has never before been available in English. Flawlessly translated by Gerald Turner, Vaculík's masterpiece is a brilliant exercise in style, dry humor, and irony--an important portrait of the lives and longings of the dissidents and post-Communist elites.
| ISBN-13 | 9788024638522 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10 | 8024638525 |
| Weight | 2.10 Pounds |
| Dimensions | 5.00 x 1.60 x 8.00 In |
| List Price | $27.00 |
| Edition | 1st Edition |
| Format | Hardcover |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Pages | 574 pages |
| Publisher | Karolinum Press, Charles University |
| Published On | 2020-01-23 |
View All Offers
Sort by:
Price
Condition
Seller
Seller Comments
Price
Used, Very Good
Seller details
BayStateBooks
North Smithfield, RI, USA
Free delivery by: 02 Apr 2026
Used, Like New
Seller details
GreatBookPrices-
Columbia, MD, USA
100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition. We offer expedited shipping to all US locat...
Free delivery by: 02 Apr 2026
✨ Brand New
Seller details
GreatBookPrices-
Columbia, MD, USA
100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition. We offer expedited shipping to all US locat...
Free delivery by: 02 Apr 2026
Brand New
Seller details
Paperbackshop
Bensenville, IL, USA
New Book. Shipped from UK in 4 to 14 days. Established seller since 2000. Please note we cannot of...
Free delivery by: 02 Apr 2026
Used, Good
Seller details
Bonita
Santa Clarita, CA, USA
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items. May be an ex-library book.
Free delivery by: 02 Apr 2026