From Laughter to Forgetting: A Source-Book of Czech Avant-Garde Discourses

A comprehensive reader on the Czech literary avant-garde.

In recent years a prominent trend in the study of European modernism and the avant-garde has been increased attention to texts and traditions that have long stood in the shadow of the French, German, and British traditions that dominate the canon. Yet this more expansive view of European modernism and the avant-garde has been hindered by the limited range of texts available outside the original languages. This book addresses that problem by offering a wide-ranging selection of literary, theoretical, and documentary sources from one of the most dynamic and original European avant-garde traditions: that of the first Czechoslovak Republic and of the Bohemian lands. The Czech avant-garde is in many respects the ideal ＂alternative＂ avant-garde to present in detail to a wider readership: it tracks Central European developments and was often influential internationally while being deeply embedded in particular cultural dynamics that produced original forms. This volume returns interwar Czech avant-garde writings to their place as a firmly embedded component of the European avant-garde.

Zuzana Říhová is a member of the Institute of Czech Literature of the Czech Academy of Sciences and teaches creative writing at Prague’s University of Creative Communication. Her novel Cestou spendlíku nebo jehel was shortlisted for the top Czech fiction prize in 2022. Peter Zusi is associate professor in the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at University College London. Meghan Forbes is a writer and translator with a PhD in Slavic languages and literatures from the University of Michigan. She is the founder of the literary imprint Harlequin Creature. Daniel Morgan is a translator with two decades of experience translating from Czech. Ian Finlay Stone is a translator who has worked for various agencies and government bureaus.