Top Czech Writers

Discussion in 'Culture' started by Torgut, Aug 4, 2009.

  1. Torgut

    Torgut Active Member

    Hello!

    I'm currently working in a website about Prague in Portuguese language and I would like to keep a small section for Czech literature. I would love some help to select the first writers to be included in such section. If any of you could point out 4 names you consider the 4 top writers ever in CR it would be great. Like a free poll :)

    Myself, I suspect I would pick: Kafka (not that I like his work), Kundera, Hrabal, Capek.
     
  2. Alexx

    Alexx Well-Known Member

    OK those four (and Havel) are probably the most known abroad. However there are "greater" writers.

    If I should choose four, it would be: Vrchlický, Jirásek, Němcová, Erben
     
  3. Torgut

    Torgut Active Member

    Hummm perfect... never heard of any of them, I apologize :) But are you truly honest naming those or are you talking about your favorites? You may noticed that I picked Kafka, noting that I don't like his work, but still I guess it must be named.

    Anyway, I don't agree Hrabal is well known abroad. Even Capek......
     
  4. eso

    eso Well-Known Member

    These are authors we are learning about in elementary school, Torgut.

    Also Neruda, Borovsky, Macha, Sekora, Lada...

    I personaly like Neruda's and Erben's work, also fairy tales from Nemcova.

    Hašek is known abroad for Švejk.

    I love books of Karel Poláček and Ota Pavel.

    Jaroslav Seifert is only Czech who got Nobel price for literature.
     
  5. eso

    eso Well-Known Member

  6. Alexx

    Alexx Well-Known Member

    Just for clarification, if eso say "Neruda", he means "Jan Neruda" (not Pablo).
     
  7. wer

    wer Well-Known Member

    Kafka is one of the top-known but I don't consider him a first class writer. And naturally there is problem with his language, you can include German-writing authors but then you have to take other German-writing authors into your consideration.

    Again top-known, and again problem with his language (His Czech works are inferior). I don't consider him first class author.

    Perhaps number one afterwars. He could eventually get into top four.

    A must in top four. (I mean Karel Čapek naturally, not the other Čapeks.)





    My ideas about the top four:

    Top two are Karel Čapek and Jan Neruda, no doubts about it.

    Number three - Jaroslav Hašek, but here I have some doubts.

    Number four - well, that's difficult, one of these: Jaroslav Vrchlický, Josef Václav Sládek, Vladislav Vančura, Bohumil Hrabal…

    …or Franz Kafka, if you want include the German writing authors

    …or Jan Amos Komenský, if you want to include pre 19th century authors.
     
  8. Torgut

    Torgut Active Member

    Hello Friends,

    Alexx, yes, I know little about Literature but it already came to my knowledge that the Chilean Neruda took is artistic name from the Czech Neruda :)

    It's interesting the denial I see in must Czechs regarding Kundera. It's so strong that wrong "facts" became word of mouth. I already heard people saying Kundera wrote most of his words in French and that he fled to France when he was very young. Both statements beeing completely false as you know. In my perspective most of this denial is rather emotional, instead of rational and focused in the artistic value of Kundera.

    Anyway, I'm loving this thread. Please, please keep it going. From the initial input seems clear that I have to add Neruda. But from the "political / commercial" point of view it would be difficult to exclude those you know are well known abroad as readers will notice it. Perhaps I should change the structure of the article, change from 4 to 8, and explaining that the view the rest of the world have of great Czech writers is somehow different from the perception most of the Czechs have from the subject, therefore presenting 4 well known abroad, 4 well loved by the Czech readers.
     
  9. Alexx

    Alexx Well-Known Member

    This seems to be good idea, and will give that article some fresh point of view.
     
  10. BlackBox

    BlackBox Active Member

    My take on it is that your initial four is pretty good choice. For me, Capek is simply number one, he has no equal. If you will read only one thing take anything from Capek. I never quite understood the attitude on Kundera. Saying there are many greater authors is some pretty bold stuff (who?). Hrabal and Švejk is also a must in Czech literature. Now, Kafka+Prague is a household name and a bit of a cliche. Many people will kinda roll their eyes on mentioning him. If you don't like him don't write about him, that is how I see it. On the other hand since your page is about Prague in particular...
    All of these authors are I think quintessentialy Czech, except Kafka, who is just Kafkaesque.
    From old (19th century) authors I like Karel Havlíček and Karel Hynek Mácha
     
  11. wer

    wer Well-Known Member

    Most of Czechs are not interested in Kundera at all, the comments on Kundera are by small community of interested, often more in Kundera himself than in Kundera’s work. And the community is indeed divided. There are people who uncritically eulogize him and people who denounce him. And naturally there are also many people with various position between the two extremes.

    I don’t think the critic of Kundera is mostly of simply emotional nature, it has a lot to do with politics and also with personal relations.
    It should be understandable that some people have problem to accept his almost Saulian conversion (and consequently distrust the genuineness of his work), it should be understandable that fanatical supporters of Havel dislike Kundera for his disputes with Havel, it should be understandable that some people resent Kundera for his “ban” on Czech translation of his French works and so on.

    I personally invested of lot of time in defense of Kundera in the affair raised by Respekt last years, I understand Kundera’s need to have control over the translation into his own native language (at least as long as he is alive) and I consider him a great writer, but I have a problem to classify his untranslated works as Czech literature and I simply don’t consider him one of the greatest Czech writers.

    But that’s natural. Most of the Czech literature is hidden to the foreigners due to the language barriere or its quality is lost in translation. Often, the great pieces of Czech literature are known abroad only as movies (Rozmarné léto, Markéta Lazarová, Spalovač mrtvol, Vyšší princip…).

    Why? The ranking of writers is always subjective. I understand that somebody, due to his personal favour, could rank Kundera as top-class writer, but what’s wrong on ranking him as 2nd class author? Is it such a big offense?

    Who?

    These are some of the Czech writers which I consider superior to Kundera:

    Karel Čapek, Jan Neruda, Jaroslav Hašek, Bohumil Hrabal, Jaroslav Vrchlický, Josef Václav Sládek, Vladislav Vančura, Jan Amos Komenský, Svatopluk Čech, Ladislav Fuks, Arnošt Lustig, Jan Otčenášek, Oldřich Daněk, Eduard Bass, Jiří Hubač, Jan Drda, Ladislav Mňačko (unless you exclude him as a Slovak), Viktor Dyk, František Gellner, Josef Svatopluk Machar, Antonín Sova, Fráňa Šrámek, Petr Bezruč, František Halas, Jaroslav Seifert, Vítězslav Nezval, Vítězslav Hálek, František Hrubín, Josef Kainar, Jan Skácel, Oldřich Mikulášek, Jaroslav Havlíček, Karel Hlaváček, Vladimír Holan, Otokar Březina, Jan Weiss, Zikmund Winter.

    And of the German-writing: Franz Kafka, Franz Werfel, Rainer Maria Rilke, Gustav Meyrink.
     
  12. Torgut

    Torgut Active Member

    I'm only commenting this part of your post because I agree with and/or had absorbed the rest of the text.

    Basically all the Czechs that I know, which are a lot, dislike Kundera on account of his move to France and, even more serious, his adoption of French for his latest works. I don't tell my friends this, because they are my friends and don't want to fall into an useless argument, but I think these considerations are based in some cheap nationalism.

    I don't understand the rating of a writer on account of his personal life or political steps not to mention personal disputes with other personalities.

    I like his books (those which I read) and that is all it matters. I really don't see the point of demonizing the man because of this and that and that. I actually heard from two different friends that Kundera is not even Czech. Or at least, in a second explanatory moment, he shouldn't be considered as such. And based on this kind if situations I say Kundera critics (that I know and spoke with) base their speach in emotional issues.
     

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