Bringing up Girls in Bohemia by Michal Viewegh

Bringing up Girls in Bohemia by Michal Viewegh

MICHAL VIEWEGH's short and witty novel Bringing Up Girls in Bohemia is the story of Beata Kralova and her not-so-young tutor. Beata is a 20-year-old drop-out and daughter of Denis Kral (i.e., King), a Czech new millionaire of dubious connections. Beata embraces lover after lover as well as causes new to Eastern Europe: the environment, animal rights, feminism, consumerism, new-age religion.

This satirical look at Prague today by the best of the new Czech writers entertains with a parade of unnforgettable characters, the new mafiosi and their ex-secret police bodyguards, the expatriate Americans, and many an extraordinary Czech, from a cremation enthusiast to a hopelessly na ve sex-education teacher.

The novel is also a serious exploration of the role of the writer in post-communist Central Europe. The narrator, himself a writer and teacher who is in love with Beata, must portray her fate in terms that explain her nihilism without losing faith in his own positive craft of story- telling. His hard-won credo as artist is to be an entertainer in a world of newly felt cruelty and suffering.