Bohumil Hrabal

Bohumil Hrabal (Template:IPA; 28 March 1914 – 3 February 1997) was a Czech writer, often named among the best Czech writers of the 20th century.<ref>"Bohumil Hrabal", by James Wood (London Review of Books, Vol. 23 No. 1, 2001)</ref>

Early life

Hrabal was born in Židenice (suburb of Brno) on 28 March 1914, in what was then the province of Moravia within Austria-Hungary, to an unmarried mother, Marie Božena Kiliánová (1894–1970). According to the organisers of a 2009 Hrabal exhibition in Brno, his biological father was probably Bohumil Blecha (1893–1970), a teacher's son a year older than Marie, who was her friend from the neighbourhood. Marie's parents opposed the idea of their daughter marrying Blecha, as he was about to serve in the Austro-Hungarian Army.<ref name="ReferenceA">“Vítová: Hrabal dostal šest pětek, a v Brně skončil”, Brněnský deník, 29 March 2009</ref> World War I started four months after Hrabal's birth, and Blecha was sent to the Italian front, before being invalided out of service.<ref name="Novinky 2004">Novinky.cz, 31 October 2004, reprinted from Právo</ref> Blecha's daughter, Drahomíra Blechová-Kalvodová, says her father told her when she was 18 that Hrabal was her half-brother. Bohumil and his biological father never met formally, according to Blechová-Kalvodová.<ref name="Novinky 2004"/> Hrabal and Blechová-Kalvodová met twice; a dedication on a picture from 1994 says: "To sister Drahomíra, Hrabal!"<ref name="Novinky 2004"/>

Hrabal was baptised Bohumil František Kilián. Until the age of three, he lived mainly with his grandparents, Kateřina Kiliánová (born Bartlová) (d. 1950)<ref name="ReferenceA"/><ref name="denikrozhovor">Template:Cite news</ref> and Tomáš Kilián (died 1925), a descendant of a French soldier injured at the Battle of Austerlitz,<ref>“Naivní fuga”, Bohumil Hrabal (Pražská imaginace, 1995)</ref><ref>“Já si vzpomínám jen a jen na slunečné dny”, Bohumil Hrabal (Stanislav Klos, 1998)</ref> in Brno, while his mother worked in Polná as an assistant book-keeper in the town's brewery. She worked there with her future husband, František Hrabal (1889– 1966); one František Hrabal was listed as Bohumil's godfather when he was baptised on 4 April 1914, but František was also the first name of Bohumil's future step-grandfather, a soft-drinks trader. František Hrabal, Hrabal's stepfather, was a friend of Blecha.<ref name=":5" /> He is a prominent character in some of Hrabal's most famous fiction work,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and in Gaps, the second volume of his autobiographical trilogy, Hrabal wrote that he declined an invitation to meet his biological father and considered František Hrabal to be his father.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Marie and František married in February 1917, shortly before Bohumil's second birthday. Hrabal's half-brother, Břetislav Josef Hrabal (1916–1985), was born later that year; Břetislav, known as Slávek, is said to have been an excellent raconteur.<ref name="ReferenceA"/><ref name="denikrozhovor"/> The family moved in August 1919 to Nymburk, a town on the banks of the Elbe River, where František Hrabal became the manager of a brewery.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Both Marie and František were involved in amateur dramatics,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> though Marie was more active.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Hrabal later recalled having a complex about this, and feeling embarrassed by her being the centre of attention.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

File:Hrabale.jpg

Hrabal's portraits on Postřižinské beers

Hrabal's uncle was Bohuslav Kilián (1892–1942), a lawyer, journalist and publisher of the cultural magazines Salon and Měsíc. The latter had a German version, Der Monat, that was distributed throughout Europe, but not in Nazi Germany.<ref>Časopis Matice moravská (Matice moravská, 2001)</ref><ref>“Bohuslav Kilian”, by Miroslav Jeřábek, Reflex, 2007, no. 5, pp. 60–63.</ref>

In 1920, Hrabal started primary school in Nymburk. In September 1925, he spent one year at a grammar school in Brno (now Gymnázium třída Kapitána Jaroše, later attended by Milan Kundera). He failed the first year, and later attended a technical secondary school in Nymburk. There too he struggled to concentrate on his studies, despite extra tutoring from his uncle.<ref name="ReferenceA"/><ref name="denikrozhovor"/>

Wartime activities and early adulthood

In June 1934, Hrabal left school with a certificate that said he could be considered for a place at university on a technical course. He took private classes in Latin for a year, passing the state exam in the town of Český Brod with an "adequate" grade on 3 October 1935. On 7 October, he registered at Charles University in Prague to study for a law degree. He graduated only in March 1946,<ref>A handbook of Czech prose writing, 1940-2005, by B. R. Bradbrook (Sussex Academic Press, 2007)</ref> as Czech universities were shut down in 1939 and remained so until the end of Nazi occupation.<ref>The Oxford companion to World War II, by Ian Dear, Michael Richard, Daniel Foot</ref> During the war, he worked as a railway labourer and dispatcher in Kostomlaty, near Nymburk, an experience reflected in one of his best-known works, Closely Observed Trains (Template:Langx). He worked variously as an insurance agent (1946–47), a travelling salesman (1947–49) and a manual labourer alongside the graphic artist Vladimír Boudník in the Kladno steelworks (1949–52, and again briefly, 1953), an experience that inspired the "total realism" of texts such as Jarmilka that he was writing at the time.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> After a serious injury, he worked in a recycling mill in the Prague district of Libeň as a paper packer (1954–59), before working as a stagehand (1959–62) at the S. K. Neumann Theatre in Prague (today Divadlo pod Palmovkou).<ref name=":5">Template:Cite book</ref>

File:Bohumil Hrabal Wall Prague Liben CZ.JPG

Bohumil Hrabal painted among his beloved cats on the "Hrabal Wall" in Prague

Hrabal lived in the city from the late 1940s onward, for much of it (1950–73) at 24 Na Hrázi ul. in Prague - Libeň; the house was demolished in 1988.<ref name=":5" /> In 1956, Hrabal married Eliška Plevová (known as "Pipsi" to Hrabal, and referred to by that name in some of his works), the 30-year-old daughter of Karel Pleva, procurator and manager of a wood factory in the South Moravian town of Břeclav. In 1965, the couple bought a country cottage in Kersko, near Nymburk; the cottage became home to his numerous cats. Eliška died in 1987.<ref name=":5" />

Early writing career

Hrabal began as a poet, producing a collection of lyrical poetry in 1948, entitled Ztracená ulička. It was withdrawn from circulation when the communist regime was established. In the early 1950s, Hrabal was a member of an underground literary group run by Jiří Kolář, an artist, poet, critic and central figure in Czechoslovak culture.<ref>“Očitý svědek (Eye-witness)”, Jiří Kolář (K. Jadrný, 1983)</ref> Another member of the group was the novelist Josef Škvorecký. Hrabal produced stories for the group, but did not seek publication.

Two stories by Hrabal (Hovory lidí) appeared in 1956 as a supplement in the annual Report of the Association of Czech Bibliophiles (Template:Langx), which had a print-run of 250. Hrabal's first book was withdrawn a week before publication, in 1959. It was eventually published in 1963, as Pearls of the Deep (Template:Langx). In the same year, he became a professional writer. Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age (Template:Langx) followed in 1964 and Closely Observed Trains (Template:Langx) in 1965.

Ban from publication and later career

File:Bohumil Hrabal 1985 český spisovatel foto Hana Hamplová.jpg

Bohumil Hrabal in 1985

After the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, Hrabal was banned from publishing.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In 1970, two of his books – Domácí úkoly and Poupata – were banned, after they had been printed and bound but before they were distributed. In the following years, he published several of his best known works in samizdat editions (including The Little Town Where Time Stood Still (Template:Langx) and I Served the King of England (Template:Langx).

In 1975, Hrabal gave an interview to the publication Tvorba in which he made self-critical comments, which enabled some of his work to appear in print, albeit typically in heavily edited form.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":1">Template:Cite book</ref> Hrabal's interlocutors were anonymous in the journal, but it was later discovered that the published interview was at least a third version of the text,<ref name=":1" /> and that the more explicitly ideological statements were inserted by editors Karel Sýs and Jaromír Pelc according to contemporary party doctrine.<ref name=":1" /> One such passage reads "...as a Czech writer I am connected to the Czech people, with its Socialist past and future".<ref name=":0" />

Some young dissidents were incensed by Hrabal's actions; poet Ivan "Magor" Jirous organised an event on Kampa Island at which his books were burned,<ref name=":1" /><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=":0" /> and the singer Karel Kryl called him a "whore".<ref>"History of the literary cultures of East-Central Europe: junctures and disjunctures in the 19th and 20th century" By Marcel Cornis-Pope, John Neubauer (John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2007)</ref> However, his defenders point out that an edited version of a key text, Handbook for the Apprentice Palaverer (Template:Langx), was published alongside the interview, which ended the ban on publication and permitted his work once again to reach the broader Czechoslovak public.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref name=":3">Template:Cite web</ref> Ludvík Vaculík, who had published his work in samizdat and would later continue to do so,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> defended him, saying that the interview demonstrated that Hrabal was a writer of such standing that he could not be suppressed and the regime had had to acknowledge him.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":3" /> Additionally, some of his writings continued to be printed only in samizdat and as underground editions abroad,<ref name=":0" /> including Too Loud a Solitude (Template:Langx) which circulated in a number of samizdat editions until it was finally published officially in 1989. Hrabal avoided political engagement, and he was not a signatory of the Charter 77 civic initiative against the communist regime in 1977.

Hrabal's two best-known novels are Closely Observed Trains (Template:Langx) (1965) and I Served the King of England (1971), both of which were made into movies by the Czech director Jiří Menzel (in 1966 and 2006, respectively). Hrabal worked closely with Menzel on the script for Closely Watched Trains which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1968. The two men became close friends and subsequently collaborated on other film projects, including the long-banned 1969 film Larks on a String.

Hrabal was a noted raconteur,<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":3" /> and much of his story-telling took place in a number of pubs including, most famously, U zlatého tygra (At the Golden Tiger) on Husova Street in Prague.<ref name=":2" /> He met the Czech President Václav Havel, the American President Bill Clinton and the US ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright at U zlatého tygra on 11 January 1994.<ref name=":0" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":1" />

Death

File:Hrabal tomb.jpg

Hrabal's grave

Hrabal died in February 1997 after falling from a window on the fifth floor of Bulovka Hospital in Prague. Initially, there were reports that he fell while attempting to feed pigeons,<ref name="lidovky">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=":2" /> though these were rejected by friends including his translator, Susanna Roth,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> who angrily dismissed the reports as a way of censoring Hrabal even in death.<ref name=":1" /> The story was later publicly renounced by professor Pavel Dungl, Bulovka's chief physician.<ref name="Reflex" /><ref name=":4">Template:Citation</ref> First Roth<ref name=":4" /> and later Tomáš Mazal noted that suicide recurs as a theme throughout his work,<ref name=":1" /> and both Dungl and Mazal said that early in the morning on the day of his death, Hrabal mentioned to Dungl an "invitation" he received in his dream from a dead poet and painter, Karel Hlaváček, who was buried in a cemetery next to the hospital. Some years later, Professor Dungl said he had no doubts about Hrabal's death being a suicide.<ref name="Czech TV">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Reflex">Template:Cite news</ref> He was buried in the cemetery of Hradištko near Kersko. According to his wishes, he was buried in an oak coffin marked with the inscription "Pivovar Polná" (Polná Brewery), the brewery where his mother and stepfather had met.

Style

Hrabal wrote in an expressive, highly visual style. He affected the use of long sentences; his works Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age (1964) and Vita Nuova (1987) consist entirely of one single sentence. Political quandaries and the accompanying moral ambiguities are recurrent themes in his works. Many of Hrabal's characters are portrayed as "wise fools" — simpletons with occasional inadvertently profound thoughts — who are also given to coarse humour, lewdness, and a determination to survive and enjoy life despite harsh circumstances they found themselves in.Template:Citation needed

Much of the impact of Hrabal's writing derives from his juxtaposition of the beauty and cruelty found in everyday life. Vivid depictions of pain human beings casually inflict on animals (as in the scene where families of mice are caught in a paper compactor) symbolise the pervasiveness of cruelty among human beings. His characterisations also can be comic, giving his prose a baroque or mediaeval tinge.Template:Citation needed He is known for his "comic, slightly surreal tales about poor workers, eccentrics, failures, and nonconformists"; his early stories are about "social misfits and happily disreputable people".<ref>Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature. Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, Publishers. Springfield, Massachusetts, 1995. Page 3.</ref>

Alongside fellow satirists Jaroslav Hašek, Karel Čapek and Milan Kundera, Hrabal is often described as one of the greatest Czech writers of the 20th century.Template:Citation needed Author Ewa Mazierska compared his works to Ladislav Grosman's, in that his literary works typically contained a mixture of comedy and tragedy.<ref name="Mazierska2008">Template:Cite book</ref> His works have been translated into 27 languages.Template:Citation needed

Quotations

• It's interesting how young poets think of death while old fogies think of girls. — Bohumil Hrabal in Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age
• Bohumil Hrabal embodies as no other the fascinating Prague. He couples people's humor to baroque imagination. — Milan Kundera.
• To spend our days betting on three-legged horses with beautiful names — Bohumil Hrabal

Works

In Czech

The complete works edition of Hrabal spisy was published in the 1990s in 19 volumes by Pražská imaginace.

Year	Title	Title in English	Publisher	Notes	ISBN
1948	Ztracená ulička	A Lost Alley	Hrádek		Template:ISBN
1963	Perlička na dně	Pearls of the Deep	Československý spisovatel		Template:ISBN
1964	Pábitelé	Palaverers	Mladá Fronta		Template:ISBN
	Taneční hodiny pro starší a pokročilé	Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age	Československý spisovatel		Template:ISBN
1965	Ostře sledované vlaky	Closely Observed Trains			Template:ISBN
	Inzerát na dům, ve kterém už nechci bydlet	An Advertisement for the House I Don't Want to Live in Anymore	Mladá Fronta		Template:ISBN
1966	Automat svět	The World Cafeteria/The Death of Mr Baltisberger			Template:ISBN
1967	Toto město je ve společné péči obyvatel	This Town is Jointly Administered by its Inhabitants	Československý spisovatel		Template:ISBN
1968	Morytáty a legendy	Murder Ballads and Other Legends			Template:ISBN
1970	Domácí úkoly, Úvahy a rozhovory	Homework: Contemplations and Interviews	Mladá Fronta		Template:ISBN
	Poupata	Buds		Confiscated and burnt by the Communist regime	Template:ISBN
1973	Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále	I Served the King of England	Petlice	Samizdat; Petlice was a secret, anti-Communist publishing house	Template:ISBN
1974	Něžný barbar	The Gentle Barbarian		Exile edition: 1981	Template:ISBN
	Postřižiny	Cutting It Short			Template:ISBN
	Městečko, kde se zastavil čas	The Little Town Where Time Stood Still		Exile Edition: 1978	Template:ISBN
1977	Příliš hlučná samota	Too Loud a Solitude	Česká expedice	Exile edition: 1980; Česká expedice was a secret, anti-Communist publishing house	Template:ISBN
1978	Slavnosti sněženek	Snowdrop Festival	Československý spisovatel		Template:ISBN
1979	Krasosmutnění	Joyful Blues/Beautiful Sadness			Template:ISBN
1981	Harlekýnovy milióny	Harlequin's Millions			Template:ISBN
	Kluby poezie	Poetry Clubs	Mladá Fronta		Template:ISBN
1982	Domácí úkoly z pilnosti		Československý spisovatel		Template:OCLC
1986	Život bez smokingu	Life Without a Tuxedo			Template:ISBN
	Svatby v domě	In-House Weddings	Pražská imaginace	Exile edition: 1987; Pražská imaginace was a secret, anti-Communist publishing house	Template:ISBN
	Vita nuova			Exile edition: 1987	Template:ISBN
	Proluky	Vacant Lot/Gaps	Petlice	Exile edition: 1986	Template:ISBN
	Kličky na kapesníku – Kdo jsem	Knots on a Handkerchief – Who I Am: Interviews	Pražská imaginace		Template:ISBN
1989	Chcete vidět Zlatou Prahu?: výbor z povídek		Mladá fronta	Jaromír Pelc (ed.)	Template:ISBN
1990	Totální strachy	Total Fears: Letters to Dubenka			Template:ISBN
	Listopadový uragán	November Hurricane	Tvorba		Template:ISBN
	Bambino di Praga; Barvotisky; Krásná Poldi		Československý spisovatel		Template:ISBN
1991	Ponorné říčky	Underground Rivers	Pražská imaginace		Template:ISBN
	Růžový kavalír	Pink Cavalier			Template:ISBN
	Atomová mašina značky Perkeo		Československý spisovatel		Template:ISBN
	Básnění		Pražská imaginace		Template:ISBN
1992	Aurora na mělčině	Aurora on the Sandbank			Template:ISBN
1993	Večerníčky pro Cassia	Cassius's Evening Fairytales			Template:ISBN
1997	Bibliografie dodatky rejstříky				Template:ISBN
1998	Já si vzpomínám jen a jen na slunečné dny		Triton		Template:ISBN
1999	Buďte tak hodná, vytáhněte rolety: výbor z milostné korespondence				Template:ISBN
2014	Skřivánek na niti			Hrabal spisy collection #2; short stories (Perlička na dně, Pábitelé, Inzerát na dům, ve kterém už nechci bydlet, Morytáty a legendy)	Template:ISBN
2015	Jsme jako olivy			Hrabal spisy collection #3; short stories (Taneční hodiny pro starší a pokročilé, Ostře sledované vlaky, Postřižiny, Městečko, kde se zastavil čas, Něžný barbar, Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále, Příliš hlučná samota)	Template:ISBN
2016	Rukověť pábitelského učně			Hrabal spisy collection #4; short stories (Slavnosti sněženek, Krasosmutnění, Harlekýnovy miliony, Autíčko)	Template:ISBN
	Život bez rukávů			Hrabal spisy collection #4; autobiographical trilogy	Template:ISBN
2017	Křehký dluh			Hrabal spisy collection #1; poetry	Template:ISBN

Selected English-language editions

File:Bohumil Hrabal, Complete works edition in 19 volumes.jpg

Complete works in 19 volumes by Pražská imaginace

Year	Title	Translator	Publisher	Notes	ISBN
1968	A Close Watch on the Trains or Closely Observed Trains or Closely Watched Trains	Edith Pargeter	Jonathan Cape	Foreword by Josef Škvorecký	Template:ISBN
1975	The Death of Mr Baltisberger	Michael Henry Heim	Doubleday		Template:ISBN
1992	Cutting It Short	James Naughton	Time Warner Books UK		Template:ISBN
1993	The Little Town Where Time Stood Still		Pantheon Books		Template:ISBN
1989	I Served the King of England	Paul Wilson	Harcourt Brace Jovanovich		Template:ISBN
1990	Too Loud a Solitude	Michael Henry Heim			Template:ISBN
1995	Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age	Michael Henry Heim	Harcourt Brace		Template:ISBN
1998	Total Fears: Letters to Dubenka	James Naughton	Twisted Spoon Press		Template:ISBN
2007	In-House Weddings (Writings From An Unbound Europe)	Tony Liman	Northwestern University Press		Template:ISBN
2008	Pirouettes on a Postage Stamp	David Short	Karolinum Press		Template:ISBN
2010	Vita Nuova: A Novel	Tony Liman	Northwestern University Press		Template:ISBN
2011	Gaps: A Novel (Writings From An Unbound Europe)				Template:ISBN
2012	Harlequin's Millions	Stacey Knecht	Archipelago Books		Template:ISBN
2014	Rambling On: An Apprentice's Guide to the Gift of the Gab	David Short	Karolinum Press		Template:ISBN
2015	Mr. Kafka: And Other Tales from the Time of the Cult	Paul Wilson	New Directions Publishing		Template:ISBN
2019	All My Cats				Template:ISBN
2020	Why I Write?: The Early Prose from 1945 to 1952	David Short	Karolinum Press		Template:ISBN
2021	The Gentle Barbarian	Paul Wilson	New Directions		Template:ISBN

Film adaptations

Year	Title	Based on	Language(s)	Director	Notes
1964	Fádní odpoledne	Fádní odpoledne		Ivan Passer
1966	Smrt pana Baltazara	Automat svět	Czech	Jiří Menzel	Segments of the anthology film Pearls of the Deep
	Podvodníci	Short story "Swindlers"		Jan Němec
	Dům radosti	Chapter V of Bambini di Praga		Evald Schorm
	Automat Svět	Automat Svět		Věra Chytilová
	Romance	Short story "Gypsy Romance"		Jaromil Jireš
1965	Sběrné surovosti	Baron Prášil		Juraj Herz	Originally filmed as part of the anthology film Pearls of the Deep
1966	Ostře sledované vlaky	Ostře sledované vlaky	Czech, German	Jiří Menzel
1969	Skřivánci na niti	Inzerát na dům, ve kterém už nechci bydlet	Czech
1980	Postřižiny	Postřižiny
1981	Mořská Miss	Chapter "Such A Beautiful Mourning" from Siren		Magdaléna Příhodová
1984	Slavnosti sněženek	Slavnosti sněženek	Czech	Jiří Menzel
1989	Něžný barbar	Něžný barbar		Petr Koliha
1994	Andělské oči	Bambini di Praga		Dušan Klein
1995	Une trop bruyante solitude	Příliš hlučná samota		Véra Caïs
2006	Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále	Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále	Czech	Jiří Menzel

External links

• Bohumil Hrabal - the Close Watcher of Trains, article on Hrabal by Mats Larsson (1997)
• "Bohumil Hrabal", a literary biography in London Review of Books by James Wood (2001)
• Hrabal and Prague
• Template:IMDb name
• Bohumil Hrabal at Czechoslovak book network Baila.net