Czech Books | All stories

North Bohemia is a strange part of the Czech Republic. It combines bleak industrial towns with striking natural beauty, and its people are also different. The area was almost completely depopulated with the expulsion of its German inhabitants after World War Two, and people moved in from across Czechoslovakia. So perhaps it's not surprising that North Bohemia also has its own very special and rather peculiar literary culture.

The impossibly named Mnohacek Zgublacenko writes sung poems. He is one of the writers featured in a brand new anthology of Czech literature. This is a fantastic book of over sixty new writers, and the good news is that it is going to be available in English translation later in the year. It will be available on the Czech Ministry of Culture website. Mnohacek Zgublacenko is one of the poets living in the Twilight Zone of North Bohemia.

Today's 'Czech Books' looks at the journalist and author, Ota Pavel. A favourite among Czechs, Ota's stories about his childhood, his fishing rods, and sporting heroes have been turned into films on a number of occasions. I take a look at the sometimes troubled, thoroughly extraordinary life of the man behind the microphone.

There have been Roma in Europe since the Middle Ages and today they make up one of the continent's largest minorities, in countries as far apart as Ireland and Russia. Roma have a rich and ancient oral culture, that has survived in many forms, despite centuries of discrimination and attempts at forced assimilation. Today, across Europe, traditional Romany ways of life are disappearing fast under the pressures of modern life. But in this programme we look at the example of Roma in the Czech Republic and Romany Gypsies in Britain, and find out

Jane Kirwan was born of Irish parents in England and has been based in Prague for several years. In this programme we will be look at her poetry from recent years, much of which is about her connection with this country. Her first book called "Stealing the Eiffel Tower" was highly acclaimed. Here is the title poem:

Ilona Ferkova writes in the Romany language, closely related to the ancient Indian language Sanskrit. It has survived and adapted itself through the centuries ever since the ancestors of today's Roma left India a millennium ago. Ilona has written a fascinating collection of short stories that capture both the tribulations and the poetry that shines even through the material hardship of life for many Roma in the Czech Republic today.

This week we meet Matthew Fitt, a Scottish writer, who is on a tour of the Czech Republic. He was born in Dundee and lived and worked in the Czech Republic, in the town of Pribram, from 1991-1993. He fell in love and married a Czech woman. Now they live in the south of Scotland.

This week we look at India and the Czech Republic, in particular a new history of India, which was co-authored by our guest today, Dr Jan Filipsky. We'll open the programme with some words by the Czech Indologist Professor Vincenc Lesny, on the occasion of an exhibition on India in 1948.

Hello and welcome to Czech Books, which this week will be looking at the Czech icon and -in the words of Milan Kundera - the mother of Czech prose, Bozena Nemcova. We'd like today to dig a bit deeper into the reality of the woman behind the image, which is embedded in Czech culture. Nemcova lived from 1820 to 1862 and was a major figure in the Czech national revival. She's most famous for her book about an idealized rural community in the early 19th century, "Babicka" - The Grandmother. This book has been translated into many languages and is known

This week we visit Martin Machovec in his book-filled flat. Martin Machovec is a well-known literary critic, translator, editor and expert on the Czech underground scene. We'll start with a short piece from one of his articles on Czech underground literature between the years of 1969 and 1989.