Czech Books | All stories

If you want to give someone a really stylish Christmas present that gives you a taste of the very best of Czech design, then I think I have just the thing for you. A richly illustrated new book has just come out, presenting the work of one of the best contemporary Czech architects.

This month sees two literary anniversaries connected with the great Czech romantic poet, Karel Hynek Macha, who was born 195 years ago this month and died in November 1836, just 26 years later. So we'll start with the opening lines of his very well known lyrical epic of love and death Maj [May]:

This week Czech Books comes from the Irish capital, Dublin. We talk to Dr Stefan Auer, a lecturer in European politics and society at the Dublin European Institute at University College. Stefan is originally from Slovakia, and he has taken a great interest in "liberal nationalism" in Central Europe. He wrote a book which has as its basic hypothesis the idea that nationalism, despite its very negative connotations for many in Central Europe, can also be a force towards greater democracy.

What makes a good translation? Are there books that are untranslatable? These are just two of the questions that we discuss in Czech Books this week with Viktor Janis, a leading young literary translator.

In today's Czech Books we meet a writer who is a master of the short story. Andrej Gina, who won the Open Society Institute's Roma Literary Award in 2003, lives in the western Czech town of Rokycany. He writes in the Romany language spoken by generations of his ancestors from the rural Romany settlements of Eastern Slovakia. Andrej was still a small child when the family came to the Prague after the Second World War, leaving behind an ancient and rural world, where Roma life had changed little for centuries.

Few fields can have gone through such radical changes over the 16 years since the fall of communism as publishing. In her research, the academic, sociologist, cultural theorist and feminist Jirina Smejkalova has shed some fascinating light on the subject, publishing a study that has become a classic of its kind. She is also well known for her writing on feminism, and was one of the first people to introduce contemporary western feminist thinking to the post-Velvet Revolution Czech Republic. In this week's Czech Books she talks to Pavla Jonssonova.

A few weeks ago we reported on the Prague Fringe Festival, bringing together 150 perfromers from all over the world in the Czech capital. One group with a special relationship to Prague was the performance poetry group "Poetry Vandals" based in Newcastle. Anarchic and entertaining, the group was invited back after their roaring success at last year's festival. During their stay the group's six members - Annie Moir, Karl Thompson, Scott Tyrrell, Aidan Halpin, Kate Fox and Jeff Price - came into the Radio Prague studio, to talk to Martin Mikule and

We start with a short poem, written by the Slovak poet Marian Hatala. Its impulse was a bomb attack at a place where elderly people traditionally play chess. Some twelve hours after the explosion, people were repairing the broken chairs, tables and benches, and impatiently waiting to get back to the chessboard.

Isobelle Carmody is an Australian writer of fantasy science-fiction for younger people and adults. She has written over twenty books and has won many awards. But she also has a link with Prague, and this is reflected strongly in her latest book, due to be published shortly by Penguin. In today's Czech Books we talk to Isobelle about her life and work.

Jaroslava Moserova's biography is quite extraordinary. She is one of those people who manage to have three or four careers at once. On the one hand she is a leading Czech burns specialist. She is also one of the country's bestknown literary translators, and a writer in her own right. Many know her as a diplomat, or as a member of the Czech Senate, and at one point she was a serious candidate for the Czech Presidency. So she is known both at home and abroad in many different capacities. In this edition of Czech Books she talks to David Vaughan.