Bohumil Hrabal

Author profile

born

March 28, 1914 in Brno, Czech Republic

died

February 03, 1997

gender

male

About this author

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Born in Brno-Židenice, Moravia, he lived briefly in Polná, but was raised in the Nymburk brewery as the manager's stepson.

Hrabal received a Law degree from Prague's Charles University, and lived in the city from the late 1940s on.

He worked as a manual laborer alongside Vladimír Boudník in the Kladno ironworks in the 1950s, an experience which inspired the "hyper-realist" texts he was writing at the time.

His best known novels were Closely Watched Trains (1965) and I Served the King of England. In 1965 he bought a cottage in Kersko, which he used to visit till the end of his life, and where he kept cats ("kočenky").

He was a great storyteller; his popular pub was At the Golden Tiger (U zlatého tygra) on Husova Street in Prague, where he met...more Born in Brno-Židenice, Moravia, he lived briefly in Polná, but was raised in the Nymburk brewery as the manager's stepson.

Hrabal received a Law degree from Prague's Charles University, and lived in the city from the late 1940s on.

He worked as a manual laborer alongside Vladimír Boudník in the Kladno ironworks in the 1950s, an experience which inspired the "hyper-realist" texts he was writing at the time.

His best known novels were Closely Watched Trains (1965) and I Served the King of England. In 1965 he bought a cottage in Kersko, which he used to visit till the end of his life, and where he kept cats ("kočenky").

He was a great storyteller; his popular pub was At the Golden Tiger (U zlatého tygra) on Husova Street in Prague, where he met the Czech President Václav Havel, the American President Bill Clinton and the then-US ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright on January 11th, 1994.

Several of his works were not published in Czechoslovakia due to the objections of the authorities, including The Little Town Where Time Stood Still (Městečko, kde se zastavil čas) and I Served the King of England (Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále).

He died when he fell from a fifth floor hospital where he was apparently trying to feed pigeons. It was noted that Hrabal lived on the fifth floor of his apartment building and that suicides by leaping from a fifth-floor window were mentioned in several of his books.

He was buried in a family grave in the cemetery in Hradištko. In the same grave his mother "Maryška", step father "Francin", uncle "Pepin", wife "Pipsi" and brother "Slávek" were buried.

He wrote with an expressive, highly visual style, often using long sentences; in fact his work Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age (1964) (Taneční hodiny pro starší a pokročilé) is made up of just one sentence. Many of Hrabal's characters are portrayed as "wise fools" - simpletons with occasional or inadvertent profound thoughts - who are also given to coarse humour, lewdness, and a determination to survive and enjoy oneself despite harsh circumstances. Political quandaries and their concomitant moral ambiguities are also a recurrent theme.

Along with Jaroslav Hašek, Karel Čapek and Milan Kundera - who were also imaginative and amusing satirists - he is considered one of the greatest Czech writers of the 20th century. His works have been translated into 27 languages.(less)

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Books by Bohumil Hrabal

Average rating: 4.11 · 5,270 ratings · 519 reviews · 82 distinct works

	Too Loud a Solitude 4.20 avg rating — 2,283 ratings — published 1976 — 26 editions	My rating:
	I Served the King of England by Bohumil Hrabal, Paul Wilson (Translator) 4.12 avg rating — 1,129 ratings — published 1971 — 31 editions	My rating:
	Closely Watched Trains by Bohumil Hrabal, Edith Pargeter, Josef Škvorecký 4.01 avg rating — 923 ratings — published 1965 — 18 editions	My rating:
	Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age 3.81 avg rating — 214 ratings — published 1964 — 10 editions	My rating:
	The Little Town Where Time Stood Still 4.05 avg rating — 131 ratings — published 1974 — 11 editions	My rating:
	Postřižiny 3.87 avg rating — 116 ratings — published 1979 — 12 editions	My rating:
	Total Fears : Letters to Dubenka by Bohumil Hrabal, James Naughton (Translator) 4.07 avg rating — 73 ratings — published 1997 — 2 editions	My rating:
	Czuły barbarzyńca 4.22 avg rating — 60 ratings — published 1973 — 7 editions	My rating:
	In-House Weddings by Bohumil Hrabal, Tony Liman (Translator) 4.10 avg rating — 48 ratings — published 1986 — 6 editions	My rating:
	Slavnosti sněženek 4.42 avg rating — 33 ratings — published 2008 — 2 editions	My rating:

More books by Bohumil Hrabal…

Quotes by Bohumil Hrabal

“It's interesting how young poets think of death while old fogies think of girls.”
― Bohumil Hrabal

17 people liked it

“My education has been so unwitting I can't quite tell which of my thoughts come from me and which from my books, but that's how I've stayed attuned to myself and the world around me for the past thirty-five years. Because when I read, I don't really read; I pop a beautiful sentence into my mouth and suck it like a fruit drop, or I sip it like a liqueur until the thought dissolves in me like alcohol, infusing brain and heart and coursing on through the veins to the root of each blood vessel.”
― Bohumil Hrabal, Too Loud a Solitude

15 people liked it

“No book worth its salt is meant to put you to sleep, it's meant to make you jump out of your bed in your underwear and run and beat the author's brains out.”
― Bohumil Hrabal

tags: authors , books , brains , sleep , underwear

13 people liked it

See all Bohumil Hrabal's quotes »

Polls

Książka lipca

Obsługiwałem angielskiego króla | Bohumil Hrabal

2 votes 66.7%

Sprawiedliwość owiec | Leonie Swann

1 vote 33.3%

Kolacja z zabójcą | Alexandra Marinina

0 votes 0.0%

Fałszywy trop | Henning Mankell

0 votes 0.0%

3 total votes

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