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French Fairy Tales

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Thomas Crowell, 1903, early printing, Very Good++picture cover cloth hardback with glossy illustrations by E. Boyd Smith, NOT "exlib"

First published January 1, 1957

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About the author

Jan Vladislav

56 books1 follower
Librarian note: this has been summarised from the Czech version of Wikipedia and so may contain some minor inaccuracies due to mistranslation. Should you notice any, please do not hesitate to head over to the Goodreads Librarian Group and request an edit.

Dr. Jan Vladislav, real name Ladislav Bambásek, was a Czech poet and translator. He translated in seven languages: English, French, Italian, German, Romanian, Russian and Ukrainian.

While in school, he helped in the local library and it was then that he found a liking for foreign-language books. The first one which he read in its entirety was Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther. After the war he studied Comparative Literature at Charles University in Prague, where notably he was a student of Václav Černý. He also spent two semesters in Grenoble studying comparative history of literature.

In 1968 he participated in the creation of the Circle of Independent Writers and in 1969 finally finished his studies at Charles University. Because of Normalisation many writers were unable to publish in the traditional way. Instead he turned to samizdat, a form of self-publishing used to circumvent censorship.

After publishing several works in this way, he was ultimately forced into exile in France in 1981. In Paris he led a university seminar in unofficial culture in the countries behind the Iron Curtain as well as continuing to publish. In 2003 he was widowed and returned to Prague where he published his older original works and translations.

He is the holder of the Order of TG Masaryk (1991), the French Order of Arts and Letters (1993), the PEN Club Lifetime Achievement Award (1998), the Czech State Prize for Translation (2001) and the Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs' Gratias Agit Award (2008).

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Displaying 1 of 1 review
Profile Image for Mia Emslie.
366 reviews4 followers
July 18, 2022
Where is my review! I wrote a long one a week or two ago….
??

Short version:
This book is from my childhood.. family friends gave it to me for my 8th bday while we were living in France.. we were stationed there for 4 years. (1959-1963)
I recently read parts of it to 2 of my grandchildren..
Unusual perspective on fairy tales. Unique, memorable. English translation still has feel of the original French.
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