I Served the King of England - Couverture souple

Hrabal, Bohumil

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 081121687X ISBN 13 : 9780811216876

Editeur : New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2007

Synopsis

First published in 1971 in a typewritten edition, then finally printed in book form in 1989, I Served the King of England is "an extraordinary and subtly tragicomic novel" (The New York Times), telling the tale of Ditie, a hugely ambitious but simple waiter in a deluxe Prague hotel in the years before World War II. Ditie is called upon to serve not the King of England, but Haile Selassie. It is one of the great moments in his life. Eventually, he falls in love with a Nazi woman athlete as the Germans are invading Czechoslovakia. After the war, through the sale of valuable stamps confiscated from the Jews, he reaches the heights of his ambition, building a hotel. He becomes a millionaire, but with the institution of communism, he loses everything and is sent to inspect mountain roads. Living in dreary circumstances, Ditie comes to terms with the inevitability of his death, and with his place in history.

A propos du livre

À propos des auteurs

Bohumil Hrabal (1914-1997) was born in Moravia. He is the author of such classics as Closely Watched Trains (made into an Academy-Award winning film by Jiri Menzel), The Death of Mr. Baltisberger, I Served the King of England, and Too Loud a Solitude.

Paul Wilson lives in Canada and has translated works by Vaclav Haval, Bohumil Hrabal, Ivan Kilma, and Josef Skvorecky.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: New Directions Publishing Corporation
• Date d'édition: 2007
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 081121687X
• ISBN 13: 9780811216876
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 256
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible