The Red Commissar: Including Further Adventures of the Good Soldier Svejk and Other Stories

"Sir Cecil Parrot, the widely acclaimed translator of Svejk, has gathered together a collection of Hasek's best stories and sketches to stand--for the first time--beside the great novel. Here, once again, in five stories, is Hasek's immortal soldier who has endeared himself to readers the world over: Svejk, the good-hearted conscript, enmeshed in red tape, who does everything wrong and is still more than a match for the officers who have to deal with him. Here too are stories that confirm Hasek's reputation as a brilliant satirist; delightfully funny stories of irrational bureaucracy in an age of world war, revolution, and Bolshevism; and nostalgically mellow stories of the everyday comedy of life in the old, ramshackle Austro-Hungarian Empire--the irreverent humour, fears, hopes and escapades. Readers will be happy to discover that in The Red Commisar Hasek's originality and wit live on beside new and unexpected facets of his craft."