# Bohumil Hrabal

Bohumil Hrabal (Czech pronunciation:; 28 March 1914 – 3 February 1997) was a Czech writer, often named among the best Czech writers of the 20th century.

## Early life

Hrabal was born in Židenice (suburb of Brno) on 28 March 1914, in what was then the province of Moravia within Austria-Hungary, to an unmarried mother, Marie Božena Kiliánová (1894–1970). According to the organisers of a 2009 Hrabal exhibition in Brno, his biological father was probably Bohumil Blecha (1893–1970), a teacher's son a year older than Marie, who was her friend from the neighbourhood. Marie's parents opposed the idea of their daughter marrying Blecha, as he was about to serve in the Austro-Hungarian Army. World War I started four months after Hrabal's birth, and Blecha was sent to the Italian front, before being invalided out of service. Blecha's daughter, Drahomíra Blechová-Kalvodová, says her father told her when she was 18 that Hrabal was her half-brother. Bohumil and his biological father never met formally, according to Blechová-Kalvodová. Hrabal and Blechová-Kalvodová met twice; a dedication on a picture from 1994 says: "To sister Drahomíra, Hrabal!"
Hrabal was baptised Bohumil František Kilián. Until the age of three, he lived mainly with his grandparents, Kateřina Kiliánová (born Bartlová) (d. 1950) and Tomáš Kilián (died 1925), a descendant of a French soldier injured at the Battle of Austerlitz, in Brno, while his mother worked in Polná as an assistant book-keeper in the town's brewery. She worked there with her future husband, František Hrabal (1889– 1966); one František Hrabal was listed as Bohumil's godfather when he was baptised on 4 April 1914, but František was also the first name of Bohumil's future step-grandfather, a soft-drinks trader. František Hrabal, Hrabal's stepfather, was a friend of Blecha. He is a prominent character in some of Hrabal's most famous fiction work, and in Gaps, the second volume of his autobiographical trilogy, Hrabal wrote that he declined an invitation to meet his biological father and considered František Hrabal to be his father.
Marie and František married in February 1917, shortly before Bohumil's second birthday. Hrabal's half-brother, Břetislav Josef Hrabal (1916–1985), was born later that year; Břetislav, known as Slávek, is said to have been an excellent raconteur. The family moved in August 1919 to Nymburk, a town on the banks of the Elbe River, where František Hrabal became the manager of a brewery. Both Marie and František were involved in amateur dramatics, though Marie was more active. Hrabal later recalled having a complex about this, and feeling embarrassed by her being the centre of attention.
Hrabal's uncle was Bohuslav Kilián (1892–1942), a lawyer, journalist and publisher of the cultural magazines Salon and Měsíc. The latter had a German version, Der Monat, that was distributed throughout Europe, but not in Nazi Germany.
In 1920, Hrabal started primary school in Nymburk. In September 1925, he spent one year at a grammar school in Brno (now Gymnázium třída Kapitána Jaroše, later attended by Milan Kundera). He failed the first year, and later attended a technical secondary school in Nymburk. There too he struggled to concentrate on his studies, despite extra tutoring from his uncle.

## Wartime activities and early adulthood

In June 1934, Hrabal left school with a certificate that said he could be considered for a place at university on a technical course. He took private classes in Latin for a year, passing the state exam in the town of Český Brod with an "adequate" grade on 3 October 1935. On 7 October, he registered at Charles University in Prague to study for a law degree. He graduated only in March 1946, as Czech universities were shut down in 1939 and remained so until the end of Nazi occupation. During the war, he worked as a railway labourer and dispatcher in Kostomlaty, near Nymburk, an experience reflected in one of his best-known works, Closely Observed Trains (Czech: Ostře sledované vlaky). He worked variously as an insurance agent (1946–47), a travelling salesman (1947–49) and a manual labourer alongside the graphic artist Vladimír Boudník in the Kladno steelworks (1949–52, and again briefly, 1953), an experience that inspired the "total realism" of texts such as Jarmilka that he was writing at the time. After a serious injury, he worked in a recycling mill in the Prague district of Libeň as a paper packer (1954–59), before working as a stagehand (1959–62) at the S. K. Neumann Theatre in Prague (today Divadlo pod Palmovkou).
Hrabal lived in the city from the late 1940s onward, for much of it (1950–73) at 24 Na Hrázi ul. in Prague - Libeň; the house was demolished in 1988. In 1956, Hrabal married Eliška Plevová (known as "Pipsi" to Hrabal, and referred to by that name in some of his works), the 30-year-old daughter of Karel Pleva, procurator and manager of a wood factory in the South Moravian town of Břeclav. In 1965, the couple bought a country cottage in Kersko, near Nymburk; the cottage became home to his numerous cats. Eliška died in 1987.

## Early writing career

Hrabal began as a poet, producing a collection of lyrical poetry in 1948, entitled Ztracená ulička. It was withdrawn from circulation when the communist regime was established. In the early 1950s, Hrabal was a member of an underground literary group run by Jiří Kolář, an artist, poet, critic and central figure in Czechoslovak culture. Another member of the group was the novelist Josef Škvorecký. Hrabal produced stories for the group, but did not seek publication.
Two stories by Hrabal (Hovory lidí) appeared in 1956 as a supplement in the annual Report of the Association of Czech Bibliophiles (Czech: Zprávy spolku českých bibliofilů), which had a print-run of 250. Hrabal's first book was withdrawn a week before publication, in 1959. It was eventually published in 1963, as Pearls of the Deep (Czech: Perlička na dně). In the same year, he became a professional writer. Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age (Czech: Taneční hodiny pro starší a pokročilé) followed in 1964 and Closely Observed Trains (Czech: Ostře sledované vlaky) in 1965.

## Ban from publication and later career

After the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, Hrabal was banned from publishing. In 1970, two of his books – Domácí úkoly and Poupata – were banned, after they had been printed and bound but before they were distributed. In the following years, he published several of his best known works in samizdat editions (including The Little Town Where Time Stood Still (Czech: Městečko, kde se zastavil čas) and I Served the King of England (Czech: Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále).
In 1975, Hrabal gave an interview to the publication Tvorba in which he made self-critical comments, which enabled some of his work to appear in print, albeit typically in heavily edited form. Hrabal's interlocutors were anonymous in the journal, but it was later discovered that the published interview was at least a third version of the text, and that the more explicitly ideological statements were inserted by editors Karel Sýs and Jaromír Pelc according to contemporary party doctrine. One such passage reads "...as a Czech writer I am connected to the Czech people, with its Socialist past and future".
Some young dissidents were incensed by Hrabal's actions; poet Ivan "Magor" Jirous organised an event on Kampa Island at which his books were burned, and the singer Karel Kryl called him a "whore". However, his defenders point out that an edited version of a key text, Handbook for the Apprentice Palaverer (Czech: Rukovět̕ pábitelského učně), was published alongside the interview, which ended the ban on publication and permitted his work once again to reach the broader Czechoslovak public. Ludvík Vaculík, who had published his work in samizdat and would later continue to do so, defended him, saying that the interview demonstrated that Hrabal was a writer of such standing that he could not be suppressed and the regime had had to acknowledge him. Additionally, some of his writings continued to be printed only in samizdat and as underground editions abroad, including Too Loud a Solitude (Czech: Přílíš hlučná samota) which circulated in a number of samizdat editions until it was finally published officially in 1989. Hrabal avoided political engagement, and he was not a signatory of the Charter 77 civic initiative against the communist regime in 1977.
Hrabal's two best-known novels are Closely Observed Trains (Czech: Ostře sledované vlaky) (1965) and I Served the King of England (1971), both of which were made into movies by the Czech director Jiří Menzel (in 1966 and 2006, respectively). Hrabal worked closely with Menzel on the script for Closely Watched Trains which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1968. The two men became close friends and subsequently collaborated on other film projects, including the long-banned 1969 film Larks on a String.
Hrabal was a noted raconteur, and much of his story-telling took place in a number of pubs including, most famously, U zlatého tygra (At the Golden Tiger) on Husova Street in Prague. He met the Czech President Václav Havel, the American President Bill Clinton and the US ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright at U zlatého tygra on 11 January 1994.

## Death

Hrabal died in February 1997 after falling from a window on the fifth floor of Bulovka Hospital in Prague. Initially, there were reports that he fell while attempting to feed pigeons, though these were rejected by friends including his translator, Susanna Roth, who angrily dismissed the reports as a way of censoring Hrabal even in death. The story was later publicly renounced by professor Pavel Dungl, Bulovka's chief physician. First Roth and later Tomáš Mazal noted that suicide recurs as a theme throughout his work, and both Dungl and Mazal said that early in the morning on the day of his death, Hrabal mentioned to Dungl an "invitation" he received in his dream from a dead poet and painter, Karel Hlaváček, who was buried in a cemetery next to the hospital. Some years later, Professor Dungl said he had no doubts about Hrabal's death being a suicide. He was buried in the cemetery of Hradištko near Kersko. According to his wishes, he was buried in an oak coffin marked with the inscription "Pivovar Polná" (Polná Brewery), the brewery where his mother and stepfather had met.

## Style

Hrabal wrote in an expressive, highly visual style. He affected the use of long sentences; his works Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age (1964) and Vita Nuova (1987) consist entirely of one single sentence. Political quandaries and the accompanying moral ambiguities are recurrent themes in his works. Many of Hrabal's characters are portrayed as "wise fools" — simpletons with occasional inadvertently profound thoughts — who are also given to coarse humour, lewdness, and a determination to survive and enjoy life despite harsh circumstances they found themselves in.
Much of the impact of Hrabal's writing derives from his juxtaposition of the beauty and cruelty found in everyday life. Vivid depictions of pain human beings casually inflict on animals (as in the scene where families of mice are caught in a paper compactor) symbolise the pervasiveness of cruelty among human beings. His characterisations also can be comic, giving his prose a baroque or mediaeval tinge. He is known for his "comic, slightly surreal tales about poor workers, eccentrics, failures, and nonconformists"; his early stories are about "social misfits and happily disreputable people".
Alongside fellow satirists Jaroslav Hašek, Karel Čapek and Milan Kundera, Hrabal is often described as one of the greatest Czech writers of the 20th century. Author Ewa Mazierska compared his works to Ladislav Grosman's, in that his literary works typically contained a mixture of comedy and tragedy. His works have been translated into 27 languages.

## Quotations

* It's interesting how young poets think of death while old fogies think of girls. — Bohumil Hrabal in Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age
* Bohumil Hrabal embodies as no other the fascinating Prague. He couples people's humor to baroque imagination. — Milan Kundera.
* To spend our days betting on three-legged horses with beautiful names — Bohumil Hrabal

## Works
### In Czech

The complete works edition of Hrabal spisy was published in the 1990s in 19 volumes by Pražská imaginace.
| Year | Title | Title in English | Publisher | Notes | ISBN |
| 1948 | Ztracená ulička | A Lost Alley | Hrádek | | ISBN 9788070230800 |
| 1963 | Perlička na dně | Pearls of the Deep | Československý spisovatel | | ISBN 9788020419279 |
| 1964 | Pábitelé | Palaverers | Mladá Fronta | | ISBN 9788020415431 |
| 1964 | Taneční hodiny pro starší a pokročilé | Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age | Československý spisovatel | | ISBN 9788020408792 |
| 1965 | Ostře sledované vlaky | Closely Watched Trains | Československý spisovatel | | ISBN 978-80-204-2948-3 |
| 1965 | Inzerát na dům, ve kterém už nechci bydlet | An Advertisement for the House I Don't Want to Live in Anymore | Mladá Fronta | | ISBN 9788020421401 |
| 1966 | Automat svět | The World Cafeteria/The Death of Mr Baltisberger | Mladá Fronta | | ISBN 9780349101583 |
| 1967 | Toto město je ve společné péči obyvatel | This Town is Jointly Administered by its Inhabitants | Československý spisovatel | | ISBN 9788071857907 |
| 1968 | Morytáty a legendy | Murder Ballads and Other Legends | Československý spisovatel | | ISBN 9788020408228 |
| 1970 | Domácí úkoly, Úvahy a rozhovory | Homework: Contemplations and Interviews | Mladá Fronta | | ISBN 978-80-204-3278-0 |
| 1970 | Poupata | Buds | Mladá Fronta | Confiscated and burnt by the Communist regime | ISBN 9788020402714 |
| 1973 | Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále | I Served the King of England | Petlice | Samizdat; Petlice was a secret, anti-Communist publishing house | ISBN 9788020201423 |
| 1974 | Něžný barbar | The Gentle Barbarian | Petlice | Exile edition: 1981 | ISBN 9788020701107 |
| 1974 | Postřižiny | Cutting It Short | Petlice | | ISBN 978-80-204-2043-5 |
| 1974 | Městečko, kde se zastavil čas | The Little Town Where Time Stood Still | Petlice | Exile Edition: 1978 | ISBN 978-80-204-1361-1 |
| 1977 | Příliš hlučná samota | Too Loud a Solitude | Česká expedice | Exile edition: 1980; Česká expedice was a secret, anti-Communist publishing house | ISBN 9788020701565 |
| 1978 | Slavnosti sněženek | Snowdrop Festival | Československý spisovatel | | ISBN 9788020419064 |
| 1979 | Krasosmutnění | Joyful Blues/Beautiful Sadness | Československý spisovatel | | ISBN 9788020433435 |
| 1981 | Harlekýnovy milióny | Harlequin's Millions | Československý spisovatel | | ISBN 9788071853060 |
| 1981 | Kluby poezie | Poetry Clubs | Mladá Fronta | | ISBN 9788020423290 |
| 1982 | Domácí úkoly z pilnosti | | Československý spisovatel | | OCLC 479201923 |
| 1986 | Život bez smokingu | Life Without a Tuxedo | Československý spisovatel | | ISBN 978-80-274-0834-4 |
| 1986 | Svatby v domě | In-House Weddings | Pražská imaginace | Exile edition: 1987; Pražská imaginace was a secret, anti-Communist publishing house | ISBN 0887811922 |
| 1986 | Vita nuova | | Pražská imaginace | Exile edition: 1987 | ISBN 0810125463 |
| 1986 | Proluky | Vacant Lot/Gaps | Petlice | Exile edition: 1986 | ISBN 978-0887811685 |
| 1986 | Kličky na kapesníku – Kdo jsem | Knots on a Handkerchief – Who I Am: Interviews | Pražská imaginace | | ISBN 80-208-0984-8 |
| 1989 | Chcete vidět Zlatou Prahu?: výbor z povídek | | Mladá fronta | Jaromír Pelc (ed.) | ISBN 8020400567 |
| 1990 | Totální strachy | Total Fears: Letters to Dubenka | | | ISBN 8071100234 |
| 1990 | Listopadový uragán | November Hurricane | Tvorba | | ISBN 9788020426871 |
| 1990 | Bambino di Praga; Barvotisky; Krásná Poldi | | Československý spisovatel | | ISBN 8020201475 |
| 1991 | Ponorné říčky | Underground Rivers | Pražská imaginace | | ISBN 80-7110-025-0 |
| 1991 | Růžový kavalír | Pink Cavalier | Pražská imaginace | | ISBN 80-7110-055-2 |
| 1991 | Atomová mašina značky Perkeo | | Československý spisovatel | | ISBN 8020801332 |
| 1991 | Básnění | | Pražská imaginace | | ISBN 9788071100638 |
| 1992 | Aurora na mělčině | Aurora on the Sandbank | Pražská imaginace | | ISBN 8071101044 |
| 1993 | Večerníčky pro Cassia | Cassius's Evening Fairytales | Pražská imaginace | | ISBN 8071101176 |
| 1997 | Bibliografie dodatky rejstříky | | Pražská imaginace | | ISBN 9788071101666 |
| 1998 | Já si vzpomínám jen a jen na slunečné dny | | Triton | | ISBN 9788386646609 |
| 1999 | Buďte tak hodná, vytáhněte rolety: výbor z milostné korespondence | | Triton | | ISBN 9788072540686 |
| 2014 | Skřivánek na niti | | | Hrabal spisy collection #2; short stories (Perlička na dně, Pábitelé, Inzerát na dům, ve kterém už nechci bydlet, Morytáty a legendy) | ISBN 9788020432810 |
| 2015 | Jsme jako olivy | | | Hrabal spisy collection #3; short stories (Taneční hodiny pro starší a pokročilé, Ostře sledované vlaky, Postřižiny, Městečko, kde se zastavil čas, Něžný barbar, Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále, Příliš hlučná samota) | ISBN 9788020433367 |
| 2016 | Rukověť pábitelského učně | | | Hrabal spisy collection #4; short stories (Slavnosti sněženek, Krasosmutnění, Harlekýnovy miliony, Autíčko) | ISBN 978-80-246-2499-0 |
| 2016 | Život bez rukávů | | | Hrabal spisy collection #4; autobiographical trilogy | ISBN 80-204-0236-5 |
| 2017 | Křehký dluh | | | Hrabal spisy collection #1; poetry | ISBN 9788020432803 |

### Selected English-language editions

| Year | Title | Translator | Publisher | Notes | ISBN |
| 1968 | A Close Watch on the Trains or Closely Observed Trains or Closely Watched Trains | Edith Pargeter | Jonathan Cape | Foreword by Josef Škvorecký | ISBN 9780810112780 |
| 1975 | The Death of Mr Baltisberger | Michael Henry Heim | Doubleday | | ISBN 9780810127012 |
| 1992 | Cutting It Short | James Naughton | Time Warner Books UK | | ISBN 0356206688 |
| 1993 | The Little Town Where Time Stood Still | James Naughton | Pantheon Books | | ISBN 9780679422259 |
| 1989 | I Served the King of England | Paul Wilson | Harcourt Brace Jovanovich | | ISBN 9780811216876 |
| 1990 | Too Loud a Solitude | Michael Henry Heim | Harcourt Brace Jovanovich | | ISBN 9780233987019 |
| 1995 | Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age | Michael Henry Heim | Harcourt Brace | | ISBN 0151238103 |
| 1998 | Total Fears: Letters to Dubenka | James Naughton | Twisted Spoon Press | | ISBN 9788090217195 |
| 2007 | In-House Weddings (Writings From An Unbound Europe) | Tony Liman | Northwestern University Press | | ISBN 0810124300 |
| 2008 | Pirouettes on a Postage Stamp | David Short | Karolinum Press | | ISBN 9788024614472 |
| 2010 | Vita Nuova: A Novel | Tony Liman | Northwestern University Press | | ISBN 0810125463 |
| 2011 | Gaps: A Novel (Writings From An Unbound Europe) | Tony Liman | Northwestern University Press | | ISBN 9780810125506 |
| 2012 | Harlequin's Millions | Stacey Knecht | Archipelago Books | | ISBN 9780981955735 |
| 2014 | Rambling On: An Apprentice's Guide to the Gift of the Gab | David Short | Karolinum Press | | ISBN 9788024632865 |
| 2015 | Mr. Kafka: And Other Tales from the Time of the Cult | Paul Wilson | New Directions Publishing | | ISBN 0811224805 |
| 2019 | All My Cats | Paul Wilson | New Directions Publishing | | ISBN 9780811228954 |
| 2020 | Why I Write?: The Early Prose from 1945 to 1952 | David Short | Karolinum Press | | ISBN 9788024642680 |
| 2021 | The Gentle Barbarian | Paul Wilson | New Directions | | ISBN 978-0-8112-2858-9 |

## Film adaptations

| Year | Title | Based on | Language(s) | Director | Notes |
| 1964 | Fádní odpoledne | Fádní odpoledne | | Ivan Passer | |
| 1966 | Smrt pana Baltazara | Automat svět | Czech | Jiří Menzel | Segments of the anthology film Pearls of the Deep |
| 1966 | Podvodníci | Short story "Swindlers" | Czech | Jan Němec | Segments of the anthology film Pearls of the Deep |
| 1966 | Dům radosti | Chapter V of Bambini di Praga | Czech | Evald Schorm | Segments of the anthology film Pearls of the Deep |
| 1966 | Automat Svět | Automat Svět | Czech | Věra Chytilová | Segments of the anthology film Pearls of the Deep |
| 1966 | Romance | Short story "Gypsy Romance" | Czech | Jaromil Jireš | Segments of the anthology film Pearls of the Deep |
| 1965 | Sběrné surovosti | Baron Prášil | Czech | Juraj Herz | Originally filmed as part of the anthology film Pearls of the Deep |
| 1966 | Ostře sledované vlaky | Ostře sledované vlaky | Czech, German | Jiří Menzel | |
| 1969 | Skřivánci na niti | Inzerát na dům, ve kterém už nechci bydlet | Czech | Jiří Menzel | |
| 1980 | Postřižiny | Postřižiny | Czech | Jiří Menzel | |
| 1981 | Mořská Miss | Chapter "Such A Beautiful Mourning" from Siren | | Magdaléna Příhodová | |
| 1984 | Slavnosti sněženek | Slavnosti sněženek | Czech | Jiří Menzel | |
| 1989 | Něžný barbar | Něžný barbar | | Petr Koliha | |
| 1994 | Andělské oči | Bambini di Praga | | Dušan Klein | |
| 1995 | Une trop bruyante solitude | Příliš hlučná samota | | Véra Caïs | |
| 2006 | Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále | Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále | Czech | Jiří Menzel | |