Rustic Baroque - Jiří Hájíček

Culture, history, language, and indeed the living memory of a nation fuse in Jiří Hájíček’s Rustic Baroque and in the additional stories included in this unique volume.Winner of the Magnesia Litera prize as the best Czech novel of 2005, Rustic Baroque is set in South Bohemia about a decade after the Velvet Revolution. The story recalls the tumult in the countryside during the 1950s collectivization of agriculture, sheds light upon the torn social fabric in the decades to follow, and characterizes how Czech people of all generations struggle to come to grips with the unresolved remnants of their past in the years since totalitarian communists were driven from power in 1989.The story combines drama and mystery with history, architecture and a little romance against a background that is the natural beauty of Southern Bohemia. The characters struggle to resolve their feelings of guilt, thirst for revenge and desire to forgive. In the original Czech, Rustic Baroque (Selský baroko) was awarded the Magnesia Litera prize as the Best Czech Novel for 2005.In this distinctive book, Hájíček’s novel is complemented by four stories from his collection The Wooden Knife. The translator has added a brief introduction and annotated the novel to enhance the reading experience for English-language readers. This makes Czech culture and language more accessible to readers, who immerse themselves in the scenes, emotions, and bittersweet memories of a past that y
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