Paul Wilson

Josef Skvorecky

Arnost Lustig

Iris Urwin-Levit

Vera Borkovec

Indecent Dreams

Set in May 1945 in a small Czech town. The Germans are withdrawing, the Red Army is advancing, and Danny Smiricky is being forced to grow up fast. Observing with contempt the antics of the town's senior citizens playing it safe, he adopts the role first of reluctant conscript then partisan.

The Cowards

Eva Adam, a nightclub singer and garrulous meddler in other people's affairs, tours worldwide, each stop comprising a single story and a single crime, and each story violates one of Father Ronald A. Knox's rules for writing detective fiction

Sins for Father Knox

The Mournful Demeanour of Lieutenant Boruvka

The Cowards (1958) is Josef Skvorecky's blackly comic tale of post-war politics that was immediately banned on publication. In 1945, in Kostelec,Danny is playing saxophone for the best jazz band in Czechoslovakia. Their trumpeter has just got out of a concentration camp, their bass player is only allowed in the band since he owns the bass, and the love of Danny's life is in love with somebody else. But Danny despairs most about the bourgeoisie patriots in his town playing at revolution in the face of the approaching Red Army - not least because it ruins the band's chance of any good gigs.

Rosemary Kavan

Kaca Polackova

Czechoslovak police force Lieutenant Boruvka, a pensive, conscience-striken man driven to melancholy by the fiendish truths of murder, is wide awake to the strange methods of murder he encounters, in this collection of twelve tales

In a not-so-long-ago time, on an army base in rural Czechoslovakia, the draftees of the Seventh Tank Battalion gird themselves for the inevitable war with America by practicing tank manoeuvres (or faking them), studying Russian texts (with horror novels tucked inside), and singing patriotic songs (with refreshing new lyrics). Among them is Tank Commander Danny Smiricky, looking forward to discharge and trying to stay out of trouble in the meantime--not an easy task when he's torn between two irresistible women, and surrounded by a boisterous and hilariously independent-minded tank crew. But the greatest danger to Danny is his politically correct major, a tiny termagant known as the Pygmy Devil. And on the eve of Danny's discharge, disaster looms... Behind the comedy of his exuberantly lustful tale lies a savage parody of life under foreign occupation.

Republic Of Whores

Karel Leden works in the State publishing house in Prague, where you publish what the Party likes, or risk life and liberty. Then the beautiful, mysterious Lenka Silver arrives. Passions rise--and suddenly there is a murder. There are plenty of suspects, but all that is certain is that the affair is in some way connected to Miss Silver's past...

Miss Silver's Past

Josef Škvorecký

A work on contemporary Czechoslovak cinematography focusing on the celebrated director Jiri Menzel's classic film "Closely Watched Train" in the context of communist Czechoslovak mores and restrictions.

Josef Skvorecky

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