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The Absolute Gravedigger (Hardcover)
Vitezslav Nezval; Illustrated by Jindrich Styrsky; Translated by Stephan Delbos, Tereza Novicka
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R470
R421
Discovery Miles 4 210
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Fiction. Translated from the Czech by David Short, with
illustrations by Kamil Lhotak. Written in 1935 at the height of
Czech Surrealism but not published until 1945, VALERIE AND HER WEEK
OF WONDERS is in essence a parable of menstruation, a bizarre
erotic fantasy of a young woman's maturation into womanhood.
Drawing on Matthew Lewis's The Monk, Marquis de Sade's Justine,
K.H. Macha's May, F. W. Murnau's film Nosferatu, as well as the
language of pulp serial novels, Nezval has constructed a lyrical,
menacing dream of sexual awakening involving a vampire with a taste
for chicken blood, changelings, a lecherous priest, a malicious
grandmother desiring her lost youth, and an androgynous merging of
brother with sister. This edition is accompanied by the original's
six black and white illustrations from Kamil Lhotak, a member of
the avant-garde Group 42. Be sure to see Nezval's other books,
ANTILYRIC and EDITION 69, both currently available from SPD.
Czech writer Vitezslav Nezval (1900-58) was one of the leading
Surrealist poets of the 20th century. "Prague with Fingers of Rain"
is his classic 1936 collection in which Prague's many-sided life -
its glamorous history, various weathers, different kinds of people
- becomes symbolic of what is contradictory and paradoxical in life
itself. Mixing real and surreal, Nezval evokes life's
contradictoriness in a series of psalm-like poems of puzzled love
and generous humanity. Nezval was perhaps the most prolific writer
in Prague during the 1920s and 30s. An original member of the
avant-garde group of artists Devetsil ("Butterbur", literally:
"Nine Forces"), he was a founding figure of the Poetist movement.
His numerous books included poetry collections, experimental plays
and novels, memoirs, essays and translations. His best work is from
the interwar period. Along with Karel Teige, Jindrich Aetyrsku, and
Toyen, Nezval frequently travelled to Paris, engaging with the
French surrealists. Forging a friendship with Andre Breton and Paul
Aeluard, he was instrumental in founding The Surrealist Group of
Czechoslovakia in 1934 (the first such group outside of France),
serving as editor of the group's journal Surrealismus. His mastery
of language and prosody was unparalleled - contemporaries referred
to it as wizardry. Alongside with surrealist poetry, he wrote poems
that sounded like genuine folksongs and for some time he teased the
Czech literary public by the anonymous publication of three books
attributed to a fictitious Robert David - one of 52 Villonesque
ballades, another of 100 sonnets, all in strict classical form. His
identity was guessed by the critics only because 'no one else would
be able to do that'. This selection from his seminal collection has
a specially commissioned foreword by Ivan Klima.
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