Born in Brno-Židenice, Moravia, he lived briefly in Polná, but was raised in the Nymburk brewery as the manager's stepson.
Hrabal received a Law degree from Prague's Charles University, and lived in the city from the late 1940s on.
He worked as a manual laborer alongside Vladimír Boudník in the Kladno ironworks in the 1950s, an experience which inspired the "hyper-realist" texts he was writing at the time.
His best known novels were Closely Watched Trains (1965) and I Served the King of England. In 1965 he bought a cottage in Kersko, which he used to visit till the end of his life, and where he kept cats ("kočenky").
He was a great storyteller; his popular pub was At the Golden Tiger (U zlatého tygra) on Husova Street in Prague, where he met the Czech President Václav Havel, the American President Bill Clinton and the then-US ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright on January 11th, 1994.
Several of his works were not published in Czechoslovakia due to the objections of the authorities, including The Little Town Where Time Stood Still (Městečko, kde se zastavil čas) and I Served the King of England (Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále).
He died when he fell from a fifth floor hospital where he was apparently trying to feed pigeons. It was noted that Hrabal lived on the fifth floor of his apartment building and that suicides by leaping from a fifth-floor window were mentioned in several of his books.
He was buried in a family grave in the cemetery in Hradištko. In the same grave his mother "Maryška", step father "Francin", uncle "Pepin", wife "Pipsi" and brother "Slávek" were buried.
He wrote with an expressive, highly visual style, often using long sentences; in fact his work Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age (1964) (Taneční hodiny pro starší a pokročilé) is made up of just one sentence. Many of Hrabal's characters are portrayed as "wise fools" - simpletons with occasional or inadvertent profound thoughts - who are also given to coarse humour, lewdness, and a determination to survive and enjoy oneself despite harsh circumstances. Political quandaries and their concomitant moral ambiguities are also a recurrent theme.
Along with Jaroslav Hašek, Karel Čapek and Milan Kundera - who were also imaginative and amusing satirists - he is considered one of the greatest Czech writers of the 20th century. His works have been translated into 27 languages.
Hantá rescues books from the jaws of his compacting press and carries them home. Hrabal, whom Milan Kundera calls “our very best writer today,” celebrates the power and the indestructibility of the written word. Translated by Michael Henry Heim.
天道不仁,以万物为刍狗 汉嘉想:“如果我会写作,我要写一本论及人的最大幸福和最大不幸的书。”对一个爱书人来说,最幸福的是什么?最不幸的又是什么?最幸福的无非就是日日与书相伴,享受坐拥书山的快感,这也是打包工汉嘉执意选择这份工作的初衷,“三十五年了,我置身在...
评分天道不仁,以万物为刍狗 汉嘉想:“如果我会写作,我要写一本论及人的最大幸福和最大不幸的书。”对一个爱书人来说,最幸福的是什么?最不幸的又是什么?最幸福的无非就是日日与书相伴,享受坐拥书山的快感,这也是打包工汉嘉执意选择这份工作的初衷,“三十五年了,我置身在...
评分正像对布罗茨基既爱又恨一样,对赫拉巴尔我也是既爱又恨。 爱的是那种稠密度和稠密度中的灵性一闪,恨的是它们又把一张张书页流淌得密密麻麻、疾风不透。 简单点说,我不太喜欢的是这种几页、十几页、几十页都不分段的行文。按我老家的俗语,这是狗喝面条一连汤儿。不过我还...
评分阅读由兴趣变为一种习惯的时候,我总不愿意去挑拣其中的“最”,因为越来越清晰的认知到读书是多么一件私我之事。我们或许可以试图在人群里凭借微弱的书之气息寻找到某些同盟,然后沉溺于杯盏交欢里的畅谈,但是那些交集是如此的短暂和局限,于是,我更渴慕用文字去致敬文字。 ...
评分正像对布罗茨基既爱又恨一样,对赫拉巴尔我也是既爱又恨。 爱的是那种稠密度和稠密度中的灵性一闪,恨的是它们又把一张张书页流淌得密密麻麻、疾风不透。 简单点说,我不太喜欢的是这种几页、十几页、几十页都不分段的行文。按我老家的俗语,这是狗喝面条一连汤儿。不过我还...
"Home again at last, eh, Sis?" 特别特别特别特别的击中了我
评分英译版不如中译版
评分This poetically written novel conveys a powerful message: the indestructibility of books and knowledge.
评分Doesn’t make so much sense for me....不只是英文翻译有些拗口还是我太没文化…有一点存在主义的味道,一点点荒唐且有些漫无目的
评分Translated by Michael Henry Heim.读的很艰难。baler的生活。
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