Monument to writer Škvorecký unveiled in Náchod

A monument to the late Czech writer Josef Škvorecký was unveiled in his native town of Náchod, eastern Bohemia, on Sunday. The monument is in the form of a bench with a realistic statue of the writer. Josef Škoverecký, who was born in Náchod in 1924, came to prominence in the 1950s with the novel Cowards which depicted the end of WWII in his town through the eyes of a teenager. He left Czechoslovakia after the Soviet invasion of 1968 and settled in Canada where he and his wife launched Sixty-Eight Publishers which published books by authors banned in Czechoslovakia. Josef Škvorecký died in 2012.