Marketa Lazarová is a Czech historical novel by Vladislav Vancura. The story takes place in an indeterminate time during the Middle Ages, and tells the story of a daughter of a feudal lord who is kidnapped by neighbouring robber knights and becomes a mistress of one of them.

Marketa Lazarová (Czech Edition)

Literature & Fiction

Vancura, Vladislav

Literary

JiaHu Books

Summer of Caprice, a captivating comic novel first published in 1926, is a classic of Czech literature, yet it is little known elsewhere. Commonly considered untranslatable due to the complexities of the text, which is characterized by a playful narrative and an exceptional mastery of language, and its profound cultural context, it is rendered here in English that beautifully captures Vladislav Vančura’s experimental style—or, as the author himself called it, his “poetism in prose.” Mixing the archaic with the innovative, raw colloquialisms with biblical quotations, Summer of Caprice opens an uproarious window onto the Czech spirit, humor, and way of life.

Summer of Caprice (Modern Czech Classics)

Karolinum Press, Charles University

The first English-language translation of a classic Czech antiwar novel written in the wake of WWI. &nbsp; Originally published in 1925, Tilled Fields and Battlefields is an expressionist antiwar novel in which Vladislav Van&#269;ura tells the story of the denizens of the Ouhrov estate in language as baroque as the manor that ties them all together. The fragmented narrative introduces the reader to such characters as the Baron Danowitz, his sons, his French concubine, the farmhand Frantisek Hora, and the mentally disabled murderer &#344;eka in the autumn of 1913, before revealing their fates during World War I. Ranging from the peaceful farmlands of Bohemia to the battlefields of Galicia, taking in the pubs of Budapest and the hospitals of Krakow, the novel constitutes an unsentimental and naturalistic approach to the war that created Czechoslovakia. Tilled Fields and Battlefields is a stunning novel by one of Czech literature's most important writers. This modernist masterpiece, reminiscent of the work of Isaac Babel and William Faulkner, is now available in English for the very first time. &nbsp;

Ploughshares into Swords (Modern Czech Classics)

Genre Fiction

Medieval Bohemia, the petty nobility nothing more than highwaymen, literally robber barons, and the king has to dispatch troops to restore order. Marketa Lazarova was promised to God at birth, destined to live her life in a convent, but she is abducted by one of the neighboring KozlÃk clan and discovers her sensual self. Told in shifting perspectives, mixing the archaic with the modern, the elevated with the vulgar, Vancuraâ€™s tale is a compressed epic, less historical novel (the history of his ancestors) than paean to honor, courage, life, carnality, and above all a love that undermines conventional notions of the profane as it shifts to a sacred outside the sanctions of religious dogma. In so doing, he shows the nexus between Crown and Church to subjugate those who prefer to follow their own natures over following imposed laws and precepts. Cinematic in approach to draw the reader into the action, as if it were happening right before oneâ€™s eyes, Marketa Lazarova deserves its place among the classics of interwar modernism, and it was awarded Czechoslovakiaâ€™s State Prize for Literature upon its publication in 1931. Yet the novel has been largely known by Franti� ¡ek Vlacilâ€™s 1967 film adaptation, generally considered one of the greatest achievements of Czech cinema, and unavailable in English until now.

Marketa Lazarova

Twisted Spoon Press

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Books by Vancura, Vladislav

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Vancura, Vladislav. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Marketa Lazarová (Czech Edition)

Summer of Caprice (Modern Czech Classics)

Ploughshares into Swords (Modern Czech Classics)

Marketa Lazarova