The Sunday Salon: Maybe I should learn Czech

Hello fellow Saloners,

Some of my colleagues say, the literature of the ex-Yugoslavian countries is quite important for us. Well, it's probably true, but after reading some books written by authors from the Balkans, I think, these books is somehow not for me.

On the other hand, because I want to know more about the literature of other Central-European countries, I've discovered for myself some Czech authors.

One of them is Jiri Hajicek, I'm really in love with his book Selsky baroko[Folk baroque], unfortunately, it is a book without any English translation again.

The other one is Patrik Ourednik. His work Europeana: A Brief History of the Twentieth Century is a quite amusing book. It’s really a brief history of the twentieth century, but of course it's not exactly a historical work. It focuses some of the most important moments of the century, some of the most important ideas, thing, books, everyday objects, etc. The result is of course a perfect picture of the last century, but the way of narration is rather from the point of view of the literature than of the history (or even the historiography).

Other works by him are about history too, but not that kind of amusing for me like this.

So, I really enjoy discovering new Czech authors, and I think they are a bit more familiar to me, than the works of our neighbours from the South.

Well, that is a brief news from me. Next time I try to write a bit more. (Yes I know, every time I promise, next time I try to write a bit more. Well, that's me, what can I do.)