68 Publishers
68 Publishers , also known as Sixty-Eight Publishers , Sixtyeight Publishers or Nakladatelství 68 in Czech , was the leading exile publisher for Czech literature founded in Toronto in 1971 by Josef Škvorecký and his wife Zdena Salivarová . The publishing house's task ended with the Velvet Revolution in 1989; It was dissolved in 1993. The literature appeared in the original language before translation into English and other languages, so that it could be smuggled back into Czechoslovakia . The number “68” refers to the Prague Spring in 1968 .
Published literature
Škvorecký and Salivarová began their publishing work initially with the books written in Czech and translated into English by Josef Škvorecký. The first book was Tankový prapor (The Republic of Whores) in 1971 , in which the first -person narrator Daniel Smiřický (called "Danny"), the author's literary alter ego, introduced in his first novel " Feiglinge ", was introduced in 1958 a Czechoslovak military base under communist rule and similar absurd conditions as in Catch-22 are caricatured with black humor. This was followed by Prima sezóna (The Swell Season, dt. A great season ) , Zbabělci (The Cowards, dt. Cowards) , Konec nylonového věku (End of the Nylon Age) . This was followed by works by other exiled authors who were no longer allowed to publish in Czechoslovakia and whose publications were intended for the Czech and Slovak emigrant scene in the United States and Canada . From there they secretly returned to their communist-ruled homeland.
Well-known authors include Bohumil Hrabal with three publications from 1986/87: Svatby v domě, German weddings in the house, Vita nuova, German Vita nuova, Proluky, German I was thinking of the golden times ; Václav Havel , Jan Křesadlo , Alan Levy , Karel Pecka , Ludvík Vaculík , Jiří Gruša , Alexandr Kliment , Václav Černý and Erazim Kohák . In 1979 poems by the almost lost Ivan Blatný appeared : Stará bydlište, German old residences . 1981 brought out 68 Publishers Jaroslav Seiferts Všecky krásy světa (All the Beauties of the World ). The Czech musician Karel Kryl was also able to publish recordings. Even Milan Kundera in 2006 in the Czech Republic published novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being had its 1985 Czech edition at 68 Publishers, however, after the French edition of 1984.
In total, have been published from 1971 to 1989 more than 220 works literary.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Walter Klier: Reference to the narrator Josef Škvorecký - "It was very interesting to live" , p. 278. In: Josef Škvorecký, Eine prima Saison , Vienna-Munich 1997, pp. 273–284.
- ↑ See bibliography ( Memento from July 16, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ See interview in the Central Europe Review
- ↑ Old residences, 1979 / German. 2005.
- ↑ See Jan Čulík: Czech exile literature ( Memento from October 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive )