Skvorecky, Josef.

Babylonsky Pribeh a jiné povidky.

Praze / Prague, Svobodné, 1967. Small Octavo. 178 pages. Original Hardcover in protective collector’s mylar. First edition of this volume of short stories which includes Bassaxofon, a long story evincing Skvorecky’s love of jazz. Illustrated. Spine lightly faded and a faint dampstain to upper corner of rear board, else a near fine copy in illustrated cloth-covered boards.

Josef Škvorecký (born September 27, 1924 in Náchod, Czechoslovakia, now Czech Republic) is a leading contemporary Czech writer and publisher who has spent much of his life in Canada. He and his wife were long-time supporters of Czech dissident writers before the fall of communism in that country. By turns humorous, wise, eloquent and humanistic, Škvorecký‘s fiction deals with several themes: the horrors of totalitarianism and repression, the expatriate experience, the miracle of jazz.
Most of Škvorecký’s novels are available in English: the novels The Cowards, Miss Silver’s Past, The Republic of Whores, The Miracle Game, The Swell Season, The Engineer of Human Souls which won the Canadian Governor General’s Award, The Bride of Texas, Dvorak in Love, The Tenor Saxophonist’s Story, Two Murders in My Double Life, An Inexplicable Story or The Narrative of Questus Firmus Siculus, his selected short stories When Eve Was Naked and the two short novels The Bass Saxophone and Emöke. A recurring character in several of his novels is Danny Smiricky, who is a partial self-portrait of the author.
He wrote four detective novels featuring Lieutenant Boruvka of the Prague Homicide Bureau: The Mournful Demeanor of Lieutenant Boruvka, Sins for Father Knox, The End of Lieutenant Boruvka and The Return of Lieutenant Boruvka.
His poetry was published as a collection in 1999 as …there’s no remedy for this pain (…na tuhle bolest nejsou prášky).
His non-fiction works include Talkin’ Moscow Blues, a book of essays on jazz, literature and politics, an autobiography Headed for the Blues, and two books on the Czech cinema including All the Bright Young Men and Women.
Škvorecký wrote for films and television. The feature film The Tank Battalion was adapted from his novel The Republic of Whores. Other features, written for Prague TV, include Eine kleine Jazzmusik, adapted from his story of the same name, The Emöke Legend from a novella of the same name, and a two-hour TV drama Poe and the Murder of a Beautiful Girl, based on Edgar Allan Poe’s story The Mystery of Marie Roget. Three very successful TV serials were made from his stories: Sins for Father Knox, The Swell Season and Murders for Luck. In the shadow of the above mentioned lies forgotten but unique and brilliant movie “Pastor´s End” based on the novel of the same name. Based on true story, the movie produced in 1968 never saw the day light and went straight into locked communist archives due to the fact that his author “illegally” fled the country.

Prominent in his writing for radio was a long-running monthly series on literature for Voice of America. From 1973-1990 he wrote over 200 of these shows covering notable literary works and discussing literary themes. (Wikipedia)

• Keywords: Czech Literature · Czech Literature – Collection · Library & Collection Building · Typografie · Typographie · Typography · Typography Rare · World Literature
• Language: Czech
• Inventory Number: 60149AB