Glorious . . . Hrabal combines good humour and hilarity with tenderness and a tragic sense of his country's history * OBSERVER *
There are pages of queer magic unlike anything else currently being done with words * GUARDIAN *
Hrabal is a most sophisticated novelist, with a gusting humour and a hushed tenderness of detail * Julian Barnes *
Czechoslovakia's greatest living writer * Milan Kundera *
Here two comic tales of provincial life between the wars combine broad humour with minutely detailed description to produce a feverish energy. Enchanting. * Time Out *
This vivid and hilarious portrait of Czech villagers between the Wars, beery, eccentric and bursting with life, puts one in mind both of Czechoslovakia's greatest novel, Hasek's THE GOOD SOLDIER SCHWEIK and one of our own classics, Sterne's TRISTAM SHANDY. * Vogue *
This book offers a series of charming, richly descriptive vignettes set in a small town. * Scotland on Sunday *