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Pan Theodor Mundstock
''Pan Theodor Mundstock'' (''Mr. Theodore Mundstock'') is the debut novel by Czech author Ladislav Fuks, first published in 1963. The English translation by Iris Urwin was published by Orion Press, New York, in 1968. It tells the story of a Jew in Prague in 1942, during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, who is waiting to be deported to the concentration camps but trying to maintain as normal an existence as possible. When the occupying Nazis force him to leave the rope shop he owns, Mundstock's psyche starts to crack. Seeing the camps as inevitable, he later starts practising for life in them. Publication Fuks completed the novel in summer 1961 but it was not published until 1963 because early readers were critical of it. It was described variously as verbose, depressing and overly given to mysticism. It was published on the recommendation of Ivan Klíma. Reception On its publication in 1963, ''Pan Theodor Mundstock'' was met with "universal critical acclaim". It wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Czech Language
Czech (; Czech ), historically also Bohemian (; ''lingua Bohemica'' in Latin), is a West Slavic language of the Czech–Slovak group, written in Latin script. Spoken by over 10 million people, it serves as the official language of the Czech Republic. Czech is closely related to Slovak, to the point of high mutual intelligibility, as well as to Polish to a lesser degree. Czech is a fusional language with a rich system of morphology and relatively flexible word order. Its vocabulary has been extensively influenced by Latin and German. The Czech–Slovak group developed within West Slavic in the high medieval period, and the standardization of Czech and Slovak within the Czech–Slovak dialect continuum emerged in the early modern period. In the later 18th to mid-19th century, the modern written standard became codified in the context of the Czech National Revival. The main non-standard variety, known as Common Czech, is based on the vernacular of Prague, but is now spoken as an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Castle (novel)
''The Castle'' (german: Das Schloss, link=no, also spelled ''Das Schloß'' ) is the last novel by Franz Kafka. In it a protagonist known only as "K." arrives in a village and struggles to gain access to the mysterious authorities who govern it from a castle supposedly owned by Count Westwest. Kafka died before he could finish the work and the novel was posthumously published against his wishes. Dark and at times surreal, ''The Castle'' is often understood to be about alienation, unresponsive bureaucracy, the frustration of trying to conduct business with non-transparent, seemingly arbitrary controlling systems, and the futile pursuit of an unobtainable goal. History Kafka began writing the novel on the evening of 27 January 1922, the day he arrived at the mountain resort of (now in the Czech Republic). A picture taken of him upon his arrival shows him by a horse-drawn sleigh in the snow in a setting reminiscent of ''The Castle''. Hence, the significance that the first few ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1963 Czech Novels
Events January * January 1 – Bogle–Chandler case: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation scientist Dr. Gilbert Bogle and Mrs. Margaret Chandler are found dead (presumed poisoned), in bushland near the Lane Cove River, Sydney, Australia. * January 2 – Vietnam War – Battle of Ap Bac: The Viet Cong win their first major victory. * January 9 – A January 1963 lunar eclipse, total penumbral lunar eclipse is visible in the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia, and is the 56th lunar eclipse of Lunar Saros 114. Gamma has a value of −1.01282. It occurs on the night between Wednesday, January 9 and Thursday, January 10, 1963. * January 13 – 1963 Togolese coup d'état: A military coup in Togo results in the installation of coup leader Emmanuel Bodjollé as president. * January 17 – A last quarter moon occurs between the January 1963 lunar eclipse, penumbral lunar eclipse and the Solar eclipse of January 25, 1963, annular solar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
