Full name: Total Fears: Letters to Dubenka

Author: Bohumil Hrabal Year: 1990 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Purchase/reserch links: LibraryThing Goodreads Amazon ISBNs: 9788090217195 8090217192

In these letters written to April Gifford between 1989 and 1991 but never sent, Bohumil Hrabal (1914-1997) chronicles the momentous events of those years as seen, more often than not, from the windows of his favorite pubs. In his palavering style that has marked him as one of the major writers and innovators of post-war European literature, Hrabal gives a humorous and at times moving account of life in Prague under Nazi occupation, communism, and the brief euphoria following the revolution of 1989 when anything seemed possible, even pink tanks. Interspersed are fragmented memories of trips taken to Britain -- as he attempted to track down every location mentioned in Eliot's "The Waste Land" -- and the United States, where he ends up in one of Dylan Thomas's haunts comparing the waitresses to ones he knew in Prague. The result is a masterful blend of personal history and poetic prose. Similar books: My Merry Mornings by Ivan Klima The Axe by Ludvik Vaculik Tales from Two Pockets by Karel ÄŒapek The Cowards by Josef Skvorecky The Guinea Pigs by Ludvik Vaculik The Sufferings of Prince Sternenhoch by Ladislav Klima