Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age

Paperback / softback

Main Details

Title Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Bohumil Hrabal
Physical Properties
Format:Paperback / softback
Pages:112
Dimensions(mm): Height 198,Width 129
Category/GenreModern and contemporary fiction (post c 1945)
ISBN/Barcode 9780099540625
ClassificationsDewey:891.86354
Audience
General

Publishing Details

Publisher Vintage Publishing
Imprint Vintage Classics
Publication Date 6 August 2009
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

A European classic of comic literature This ebullient, gallivanting novel encapsulates the world vision of the Czech Republic's best-loved author in one tumbling, breathtaking sentence. Saints and sinners, emperors and embezzlers, barmaids and balalaikas all play their part in the bawdy reminiscences of Hrabal's cobbler as he charms an audience of young beauties.

Author Biography

Bohumil Hrabal was born in 1914 in Brno-Zidenice, Moravia. He received a degree in Law from Prague's Charles University, and lived in Prague since the late 1940s. In the 1950s he worked as a manual laborer in the Kladno ironworks, from which he drew inspiration for his "hyper-realist" texts he was writing at that time. He won international acclaim for such books as I Served the King of England and Too Loud a Solitude. Hrabal is considered, along with Jaroslav Hasek and Karel Capek, as one of the greatest Czech writers of the 20th century, and perhaps the most important in the post-war period. In February 1997 he flew out of his hospital window never to return.

Reviews

The beauty of Hrabal's book is how he is able to make this tightly-wound object move...what Hrabal has created is an informal history of the indomitable Czech spirit. And perhaps...the human spirit * The Times * First-hand experience informs Hrabal's work with a wonderful detail, irascibility and charm * Los Angeles Times * Hrabal has invented some of the most memorable characters in world literature * Los Angeles Times *