6 – 7:30 pm
Through close reading of Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and two of Bohumil Hrabal’s best-selling novels, I Served the King of England and Closely Watched Trains, we will consider how the unique features of Czech literary history intertwine with the equally idiosyncratic outlines of Czech political history. Kundera and Hrabal’s writings offer key examples of how inexorable the bond between literature and politics can become in the pressure cooker of a small central European nation.
Dagmar Herrmann is an award-winning translator, teacher of Hebrew and Judaica, and independent scholar.
- Kundera, Milan. The Joke. (Definitive version fully revised by the author.) HarperPerennial, 1993. ISBN-10: 006099505X
- Kundera, Milan. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Any available edition.
- Hrabal, Bohumil. I Served the King of England. ISBN 978-0-8112-1687-6. Note: the Newberry Bookstore is unable to stock this text.
- Hrabal, Bohumil. Closely Watched Trains. ISBN 0-8101-0857-7
This class is part of the Newberry’s Adult Education Seminars Program.
Ten sessions, $240.