Czech Books | All stories

During the Second World War, over 140,000 people were imprisoned in the Terezín ghetto north of Prague. Their only crime was to be Jewish. One in four died in the ghetto itself, and most who survived later perished in other Nazi camps. But despite appalling overcrowding, there was still a semblance of normal life in Terezín. The ghetto’s streets still had names; people would still go to work in the morning, and come home to their cramped barracks at night. And against the odds, Terezín had a thriving cultural life. This included theatre, a fact

For this week's Czech Books I visited a very well known author, Tereza Brdečková, in her flat in Malá Strana, the oldest quarter in Prague. She's an author who seems to have a particular interest in the importance of not forgetting the past and in the ways individuals tell their stories. In short, how history is constructed. This is reflected in many of her works, most particularly in The History Teacher, a novel that tells the tale of a thirty-something male teacher who is utterly traumatised by the changes of 1989. My first question was to ask

For this week’s programme, we have something of a treat: a long forgotten interview from our archives with someone who is nothing less than a Czech legend. If you ask just about anyone in this country who is the best loved Czech actor of all time, you will almost certainly hear the name Jan Werich. Several generations of Czechs have grown up to love the larger-than-life roles he played, his distinctive and deep voice, and his wonderfully expressive and humorous face, immortalized in films that span a career of fifty years. Born in 1905, Werich first

The guest on Czech Books this week, Tomáš Zmeškal, stunned the Czech literary world and reading public this autumn with his debut novel, Milostný Dopis Klínovým Písmem or Love Letter in Cunieform Script. The book is an unusual kind of love story with a broad historical sweep, covering the post-war period to the 1990s, and has a very innovative stylistic approach. After almost unbelievably positive reviews it sold out immediately and went into a second edition - the sort of "overnight success" and "literary sensation" most writers must

Martin Brown is an English historian with a particular interest in twentieth century Czechoslovak history. His mother is Czech and he speaks both languages fluently, enabling him to move effortlessly between sources in both Czech and English. Martin was recently in Prague for the launch of the Czech version of his appraised study of the Czechoslovak government in exile in London during the Second World War. The book “Dealing with Democrats”, published by Peter Lang, is anything but a dry study of diplomatic history. Instead it offers intriguing

Jan Rybář has spent the best part of the last two decades at the sharp end of news reporting. As a correspondent he has travelled the world, witnessing the collapse of the Soviet Union, followed by momentous political changes worldwide and a series of tragic and brutal conflicts in Europe and Asia. Still only 37, Jan has now brought together some of his experiences in a richly illustrated book. It translates as “Warriors, Terrorists and Other Lunatics”, a not entirely ironic title which reflects some of the extraordinary characters Jan has met

Earlier this year, a leading author and very well-known and much admired personality in the Czech Republic died - Alexandra Berková. She was a journalist, writer for tv, novelist and short story writer, a campaigner for social justice in many areas, as well as being a beloved teacher of many. Her novels were highly experimental in nature, mixing, for example, allegory, fairytale and satire. In order to discuss the work of Alexandra (or Saša) Berková, I visited Pavla Jonssonová, a cultural theorist who teaches at the Anglo-American University in

“I’m now going to write down some of the things which have happened over the last few days. I’ve got such a short memory, I’m afraid, and this is a way of making sure that I don’t forget.” These are the opening lines of a diary that was written in 1945 by a young woman as she gradually emerged from the hell of the concentration camps, hoping, against the odds, to see her husband again. The woman’s name was Hana Pravda, and she died in London on May 22 this year at the age of 92. Hana spent much of the second half of her life in Britain, where she

70 years ago, in September 1938, Europe was in the grip of a complex international diplomatic drama, known as the Munich crisis. It culminated in the fateful signing of the Munich Agreement on September 30, when the leaders of Britain, France and Italy agreed to Hitler’s territorial claims on Czechoslovakia in return for a peace that was to last just a year. A fascinating and gripping account of this crisis has been published this week, and I’m delighted to be able to talk about it with its author, my colleague at Radio Prague, David Vaughan:

Hello and welcome to Czech Books, which this week has a French accent. It would be hard to overstate the very important and longstanding relationship between the Czech and French cultures. Historically many writers and artists such as Alfons Mucha, Toyen and more recently, Milan Kundera, have found a home in France, and the tradition continues today with the translator and writer Patrik Ouředník, whose very powerful and remarkable book, Europeana, we'll be discussing today.