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[ excerpt ]
book view
also by the author and translator:
House of the Nine Devils
The Last Bell
Publication supported by the German Translators' Fund of
the Federal Government Commissioners for Culture and Media, and
the Federal Ministry of Housing, Arts, Culture, Media and Sport of the Republic of Austria.
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prague triptych
by Johannes Urzidil
translated from the German by David Burnett
Structured as a winged altarpiece, Prague Triptych is written in Urzidil’s characteristic blend of fact, fiction, and memoir
to create a mosaic of his native city. The centerpiece is the novella-length “Weissenstein Karl,” a Švejk-like palavering denizen of Café Arco
who sits and converses with Franz Werfel, Max Brod, Franz Kafka, Ernst Pollak (and his wife-to-be Milena Jesenská) and all the
other writers known as the Prague Circle. Through the eyes of his subjects, Urzidil takes us from Prague’s earliest history and lore through
the Thirty Years’ War with its multiple defenestrations, to fin-de-siècle ferment and the uneasy cohabitation between Czechs, Germans,
and Jews over the final decades of Habsburg rule, and ultimately to the period immediate following WWI in an independent Czechoslovakia.
This journey is capped with a final, dreamlike farewell to his city as the iron curtain descends like a theater curtain to signal the end
of the performance and the darkening of the stage that had been graced by those he once knew.
“Prague Triptych” is such a powerful, often hypnotic and mesmerising book; whether it’s fiction, autofiction or fact
really doesn’t matter in the end, as it paints a vivid picture of a city Urzidil obviously loved deeply, as well as
people he knew; and it really got under my skin.
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— Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings
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Urzidil’s Bohemia is a microcosm of the 20th century’s promise and failings, and his fiction shows readers what can be gleaned from such tragedy.
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— James Reith, The Atlantic
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The most erudite of all Prague German writers, his mastery consists not least of all in his ability to tell a story while politely concealing his erudition.
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— Peter Demetz
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ISBN 9788088628064
229 pp., 135 x 195 mm
softcover with flaps
fiction / memoir
publication:
UK/Europe: July 2026
US/Canada: November 2026
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