Patrik Ouředník (in French sometimes known as Patrick; born 23 April 1957) is a
Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus
*Czech (surnam ...
author
In legal discourse, an author is the creator of an original work that has been published, whether that work exists in written, graphic, visual, or recorded form. The act of creating such a work is referred to as authorship. Therefore, a sculpt ...
and
translator
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''trans ...
, living in France.
Biography
Ouředník was born on 23 April 1957 in
Prague
Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...
, Czechoslovakia. He spent his youth in Prague. In 1984 he emigrated to France, where he first worked as a chess consultant, then as a librarian. From 1986 to 1998 he served as editor and head of the literature section of the quarterly ''L'Autre Europe''. In 1992 he was instrumental in founding the Free University of Nouallaguet, and he has lectured there since 1995.
Translator from French into Czech (
François Rabelais
François Rabelais ( , ; ; born between 1483 and 1494; died 1553) was a French writer who has been called the first great French prose author. A Renaissance humanism, humanist of the French Renaissance and Greek scholars in the Renaissance, Gr ...
,
Alfred Jarry
Alfred Jarry (; ; 8 September 1873 – 1 November 1907) was a French Artistic symbol, symbolist writer who is best known for his play ''Ubu Roi'' (1896)'','' often cited as a forerunner of the Dada, Surrealism, Surrealist, and Futurism, Futurist ...
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...
Boris Vian
Boris Vian (; 10 March 1920 – 23 June 1959) was a French polymath who is primarily remembered for his novels. Those published under the pseudonym Vernon Sullivan were bizarre parodies of criminal fiction, highly controversial at the time of th ...
,
Claude Simon
Claude Eugène Henri Simon (; 10 October 1913 – 6 July 2005) was a French novelist and recipient of the 1985 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Biography
Claude Simon was born in Tananarive on the isle of Madagascar. His parents were French, an ...
...) and from Czech into French (
Bohumil Hrabal
Bohumil Hrabal (; 28 March 1914 – 3 February 1997) was a Czech Republic, Czech writer, often named among the best Czech writers of the 20th century.
Early life
Hrabal was born in Židenice (suburb of Brno) on 28 March 1914, in what was then ...
,
Vladimír Holan
Vladimír Holan (; September 16, 1905 – March 31, 1980) was a Czechoslovak poet famous for employing obscure language, dark topics and pessimistic views in his poems. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in the late 1960s.
Life
Holan was bor ...
Jiří Gruša
Jiří Gruša (10 November 1938, in Pardubice – 28 October 2011, in Bad Oeynhausen) was a Czech poet, novelist, translator, diplomat and politician.Ivan Wernisch...), Ouředník is also the author of various literary texts.
Work
Three of his novels were translated into English:
* ''Europeana. A Brief History of the Twentieth Century'' (Dalkey Archive Press, 2005): Book of the Year in the Czech Republic (per ''
Lidové noviny
''Lidové noviny'' (''People's News'', or ''The People's Newspaper'', ) is a daily newspaper published in Prague, the Czech Republic. It is the oldest Czech daily still in print, and a newspaper of record. It is a national news daily covering po ...
''), Top Shelf in United States (''The Village Voice''), translated into 33 languages (2017), ''Europeana'' is a mordant deconstruction of historical memory where all references—events, slogans, persons, dates—accumulate and then return, vague and vacillating, to alienate the reader.
*''The Opportune Moment, 1855'' (Dalkey Archive Press, 2011): Book of the Year in Italy (''La Stampa''). In 1855, a group of
anarchists
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or hierarchy, primarily targeting the state and capitalism. Anarchism advocates for the replacement of the state w ...
,
communists
Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, d ...
, and
libertarians
Libertarianism (from ; or from ) is a political philosophy that holds freedom, personal sovereignty, and liberty as primary values. Many libertarians believe that the concept of freedom is in accord with the Non-Aggression Principle, according ...
leaves Europe for Brazil in order to establish the colony Fraternitas, based on the principles of community and
egalitarianism
Egalitarianism (; also equalitarianism) is a school of thought within political philosophy that builds on the concept of social equality, prioritizing it for all people. Egalitarian doctrines are generally characterized by the idea that all hum ...
. The project collapses, as does the linear narration.
*''Case Closed'' (Dalkey Archive Press, 2010): Seemingly a detective novel, set in a dreamlike post-Communist Prague. Revolving around a fistful of harmless, humorous retirees who sit and chat on the local park bench, the plot is replete with mysterious hints, crippled language, unsolved crimes, at least one suspicious suicide, and a bizarre rape. Who, where, when, how, why?
A complete list of his work includes:
* ''The Rough-book of the Czech Language: A Dictionary of Unconventional Czech'' (Šmírbuch jazyka českého. Slovník nekonvenční češtiny), Paris, 1988.
* ''Or'' (Anebo), Prague, 1992.
* ''The Extraordinary Adventures of Prince Chicory...'' (O princi Čekankovi, jak putoval za princeznou...), Prague, 1993.
* ''And There Is No New Thing under the Sun: A Dictionary of Biblical and Parabiblical Expressions'' (Aniž jest co nového pod sluncem. Slova, rčení a úsloví biblického původu), Prague, 1994.
* ''Year Twenty-Four'' (Rok čtyřiadvacet), Prague,1995.
* ''If I Don't Say So'' (Neřkuli), Prague, 1996.
* ''In Search of Lost Language'' (Hledání ztraceného jazyka), Prague, 1997.
* ''112 Ways to Roll a Barrel of Oil'' (Des 112 façons desquelles on peut faire rouler un tonneau à huile) (Limoges 1999, with Jiří Pelán).
* ''The Key Is at the Bar'' (Klíč je ve výčepu), Prague, 2000.
* ''55 Types of Laced Boots to Keep Your Feet Warm in Winter'' (Des 55 espèces de brodequines dont on peut s'entourer les pieds en hiver) (Limoges 2001, with Jiří Pelán).
* ''Europeana: A Brief History of the Twentieth Century'' (Europeana: Stručné dějiny dvacátého věku), Prague, 2001.
* ''House of a Barefoot Man'' (Dům bosého) Prague, 2004.
* ''The Opportune Moment, 1855'' (Příhodná chvíle, 1855), Prague, 2006.
* ''Case Closed'' (Ad acta), Prague, 2006.
* ''It Was Utopus Who Made Me an Island'' (Utopus to byl, kdo učinil mě ostrovem), Prague 2010.
* ''Today and After Tomorrow'' (Dnes a pozítří), Prague 2012.
* ''On the Free Exercise of Language'' (Svobodný prostor jazyka), Prague 2013. Winner of the
Tom Stoppard Prize
The Tom Stoppard Prize () is a literary award given annually for outstanding primarily non-fiction work by a writer of Czech origin. It was established in 1983 and first awarded in 1984, to Eva Kantůrková for '' My Companions in the Bleak House' ...
.
* ''A History of France: For Our Dearly Departed'' (Histoire de France. À notre chère disparue), Paris 2014 (in French).
* ''The End of the World Might Not Have Taken Place'' (La fin du monde n'aurait pas eu lieu), Paris 2017 (in French).
* ''Antialkoran. The strange world of T.H. (Antialkorán. Nejasný svět T.H.'', Prague 2018.