Jaroslav Hasek

"Pokhozhdenija bravogo soldata Shvejka" - samoe populjarnoe proizvedenie cheshskoj literatury, perevedennoe pochti na vse jazyki mira. Velikij, originalnyj i khuliganskij roman. Kniga, kotoruju mozhno vosprinjat i kak "soldatskuju bajku", i kak klassicheskoe proizvedenie, neposredstvenno svjazannoe s traditsijami Vozrozhdenija. Eto iskrometnyj tekst, nad kotorym smeeshsja do slez, i moschnyj prizyv "slozhit oruzhie", i odno iz samykh obektivnykh istoricheskikh svidetelstv vo vsemirnoj literature.

The inspiration for such works as Joseph Heller's Catch-22, Jaroslav Hašek's black satire The Good Soldier Švejk is translated with an introduction by Cecil Parrott in Penguin Classics. Good-natured and garrulous, Švejk becomes the Austro-Hungarian army's most loyal Czech soldier when he is called up on the outbreak of the First World War - although his bumbling attempts to get to the front serve only to prevent him from reaching it. Playing cards, getting drunk and becoming a general nuisance, the resourceful Švejk uses all his natural cunning and genial subterfuge to deal with the doctors, police, clergy and officers who chivvy him towards battle. The story of a 'little man' caught in a vast bureaucratic machine, The Good Soldier Švejk combines dazzling wordplay and piercing satire to create a hilariously subversive depiction of the futility of war. Cecil Parrott's vibrant, unabridged and unbowdlerized translation is accompanied by an introduction discussing Hašek's turbulent life as an anarchist, communist and vagranty, and the Everyman character of Švejk. This edition also includes a guide to Czech names, maps and original illustrations by Josef Ladas. Jaroslav Hašek (1883-1923) Besides this book, the writer wrote more than 2,000 short works, short stories, glosses, sketches, mostly under various pen-names. If you enjoyed The Good Soldier Švejk, you might like Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, also available in Penguin Classics.'Brilliant ... perhaps the funniest novel ever written'George Monbiot'Hašek was a comic genius'Sunday Times'Hašek was a humorist of the highest calibre.... A later age will perhaps put him on a level with Cervantes and Rabelais' Max Brod

An attack on war which broadens into a satire on the ANCIEN REGIME of the Austro-Hungarian empire, THE GOOD SOLDIER SVEJK recreates the age-old figure of the simple soldier whose sheer determination to survive brings into question the mighty social and political institutions he confronts.

Presented here in a stunning hardcover edition, The Good Soldier Svejk, written in the aftermath of World War I by Czech humorist Jaroslav Hasek (1883-1923), stands as the classic satiric portrait of a little man waging war against authority. The unassuming and affable Svejk, having been called to serve in the Austro-Hungarian army at the start of the Great War, shrewdly plays the bumbling fool and makes a genial nuisance of himself, managing to avoid ever reaching the front while appearing loyally determined to do so. Possessed of an unerring talent for finding himself in (and extricating himself from) the most chaotic and absurd situations, Svejk represents, in his instinct for survival, all those human values that stand opposed to the utter futility of warfare. Hasek's novel, inspired by the author's own wartime escapades, has entertained readers in more than fifty languages for nearly a century and has come to define the spirit of comic endurance necessary to withstand the manglings of a modern-day bureaucratic war machine. This hardcover edition, translated and introduced by Cecil Parrott, is lavishly illustrated with 156 drawings by Hasek's friend and colleague, the Czech cartoonist Josef Lada, and includes maps, a guide to pronouncing Czech names, a bibliography, and a chronology of the author's life and times. Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a jacket. Contemporary Classics include an introduction, a select bibliography, and a chronology of the author's life and times.