Irena Dousková and Michal Viewegh rank among the most successful contemporary Czech authors, and it is not just at home that they’ve been doing very nicely. Their books have also been published in translation, with Michal Viewegh’s in twenty-four languages and Irena Dousková’s in eleven.
Pálava Publishing, who bring out fiction by contemporary Czech authors in English translation, are now offering another two of their latest works on the book market: Vybíjená, a novel by Michal Viewegh (Dodgeball, translated by David Short) and a loose continuation of Hrdý Budžes by Irena Dousková: Oněgin byl Rusák (Onegin Was a Rusky, translated by Melvyn Clarke).
When her latest book translation was brought out, Irena Dousková commented: “I am very pleased that just two years after Hrdý Budžes, Pálava Publishing have now published this loose continuation, Oněgin byl Rusák, translated also by Melvyn Clarke. I appreciate all the translations of my books, but I surely need not stress just how very important this English one is. I will hope that both books find readers who would otherwise not gain access to them, and that they will appeal to at least some of them, especially considering that much of what they describe has not completely and utterly disappeared into the safe depths of the past. We have long ceased to be the obedient satellite of Russia (or the USSR), or of anybody else for that matter, thank goodness, but that does not prevent us from sometimes acting as if we were… Laughter is not omnipotent. It often does not even protect you from yourself, but all the same I do not cease to believe that just a little can go a long way…’’
7. 6. 2018
