I Served The King Of England

Featuring an introduction by Adam Thirlwell

Bohumil Hrabal, Adam Thirlwell

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English

Vintage
01 October 2009

Fiction & Literature; Classic fiction (pre c 1945)

'Our very best writer today' Milan Kundera

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ADAM THIRLWELL

'Our very best writer today' Milan Kundera

Sparkling with comic genius and narrative exuberance, I Served the King of England is a story of how the unbelievable came true. Its remarkable hero, Ditie, is a hotel waiter who rises to become a millionaire and then loses it all again against the backdrop of events in Prague from the German invasion to the victory of Communism. Ditie's fantastic journey intertwines the political and the personal in a narrative that both enlightens and entertains.

By: Bohumil Hrabal
Introduction by: Adam Thirlwell
Imprint: Vintage
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 131mm, Spine: 17mm
Weight: 206g
ISBN: 9780099540939
ISBN 10: 0099540932
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 01 October 2009
Recommended Age: From 0 years
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Bohumil Hrabal was born in 1914 in Brno-Zidenice, Moravia. He received a degree in Law from Prague's Charles University, and lived in Prague since the late 1940s. In the 1950s he worked as a manual laborer in the Kladno ironworks, from which he drew inspiration for his hyper-realist texts he was writing at that time. He won international acclaim for such books as I Served the King of England and Too Loud a Solitude. Hrabal is considered, along with Jaroslav Hasek and Karel Capek, as one of the greatest Czech writers of the 20th century, and perhaps the most important in the post-war period. In February 1997 he flew out of his hospital window never to return.

Reviews for I Served The King Of England: Featuring an introduction by Adam Thirlwell

The fantasising and storytelling deliver a body blow of total irreverence to the solemn mythopoeia of monumental historiography Times Literary Supplement Hrabal bounces and floats. His mode is a sort of dancing realism, somewhere between fairytale and satire.He is a most sophisticated novelist, with a gusting humour and a hushed tenderness of detail. We should read him -- Julian Barnes Well worth reading The Book Magazine