Discovering Czechia through books: A Belgian reader on the country’s literary voice
Czech literature will be in the international spotlight next week when Czechia becomes Guest of Honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the world’s largest publishing trade fair. Seventy-five Czech authors are heading to Frankfurt for the event, which runs from October 7 to 11 under the motto “Czechia: A Country on the Coast.” Against that backdrop, Czechast speaks to Belgian intellectual-property lawyer and passionate reader Bart van Besien, whose Bookmarked Places project explores countries through their literature – and whose journey through Czech books has taken him from Bohumil Hrabal and Jiří Weil to contemporary writer Marek Šindelka.
A country discovered through its literature
For five days next week, Czech literature will occupy an unusually prominent place on the international publishing stage. Czechia is this year’s Guest of Honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair, with 75 Czech authors travelling to Germany for readings, discussions and other events. The programme extends well beyond the fair itself, with exhibitions and cultural events across Frankfurt and elsewhere in the German-speaking world. Frankfurter Buchmesse
It is also an opportunity to introduce international readers to Czech writers beyond the relatively small group of names already familiar abroad. That is something Bart van Besien has been doing on a much more personal scale.
Bart makes his living as an intellectual-property lawyer in Belgium, working mainly in copyright. But outside his profession, books and travel have developed into a substantial personal project. His website, Bookmarked Places, brings the two together. Readers can choose a city, region or country and find novels connected with it. The idea grew from Bart’s own habit of looking for books associated with places he visited.
For the moment, his project concentrates largely on Europe, and only on works available in English translation. That inevitably leaves gaps. But Bart says part of his motivation is precisely to encourage Europeans to look beyond the dominant English-language literary world and discover books written closer to home.
Czechia is a good example. Bart has visited the country several times, mostly Prague, both on holiday and for work. His professional connection is the Czech Arbitration Court, where he serves as an arbitrator in internet domain-name disputes. But visiting Prague also encouraged him to look for Czech authors.
One of his most important discoveries was Bohumil Hrabal and his novel I Served the King of England. “It was kind of a revelation. I understand that in Czechia he is a big name, a big author. But in Belgium, not so many people know him.” Bart believes I Served the King of England would also make a good starting point for somebody approaching Czech literature for the first time. The novel follows its protagonist through the dramatic transformations of 20th-century Czechoslovakia, combining history with a highly distinctive literary voice.
“It gives an idea of the Czech Republic, or Czechoslovakia at that time, during the twentieth century – starting before the Second World War, going over the Second World War into the communist era. It gives you a sense of time and of place and of history.”
Another discovery was Jiří Weil’s Mendelssohn Is on the Roof, set in Nazi-occupied Prague. Its opening revolves around an order to remove a statue of the Jewish composer Felix Mendelssohn from the roof of the Rudolfinum – complicated by the fact that those carrying out the order do not know which statue is Mendelssohn. For Bart, the novel captures something he has encountered repeatedly in Czech writing: humour and absurdity coexisting with extremely dark history.
“It’s written by somebody who experienced the times and all the terror of the Second World War in Prague. And he wrote about it with a lot of humour, but also a lot of feeling. It’s not only humorous – it’s also a very deeply felt book.”
Absurdity, antiheroes and a Belgian connection
Bart’s reading ranges from established figures such as Franz Kafka, Jaroslav Hašek, Bohumil Hrabal and Milan Kundera to more recent authors. One writer he particularly admires is Marek Šindelka, whose work Bart has read in Dutch. He describes Šindelka as one of the most interesting contemporary European writers and regrets that more of his work is not readily available in English.
But exploring Czech literature has also led Bart to notice unexpected similarities between Czechia and his native Belgium. Both are relatively small European countries whose cultures developed alongside larger linguistic and cultural forces. More strikingly, Bart sees a shared taste for absurdity and for characters who are anything but conventional heroes.
“In Czech literature, these authors or these characters in the books don’t take themselves too seriously. You have a lot of absurdism, and a lot of the protagonists are not superheroes, but rather these antiheroes who find themselves in a comical situation and don’t know what to do about it.” He sees something similar in Belgian literature and culture. Bart has also been struck by how strongly history continues to shape Czech writing, particularly the experience of the Second World War and, later, four decades of communist rule.
For more, listen to the full version of this edition of Czechast, our podcast in English about all things Czech.
