Hrabala experts gathered in Nymburk. His Japanese translator also arrived

The three-day event is being held on the occasion of this year’s 110th anniversary of Hrabal’s birth. It focuses on the overlooked and hidden aspects of his work. It is organized by the Nymburk City Library and Charles University. Among the twenty lecturers are Hrabal’s translators into French, Japanese or Polish.

According to experts, the author is among the five most translated Czech authors, and his popularity is currently growing in Romania and Japan. Too Noisy Solitude was translated into Japanese for the first time in 2007.

“It’s still a new phenomenon and a new author for us,” says one of the speakers, Japanese bohemian and translator of Czech literature Keniči Abe. “In terms of content, there are several elements that attract us, such as nostalgia, humor and everyday poetry, of course the realities are sometimes distant, for example the First Republic or Nymburk, but the essence of his novel is universal,” says Abe. He has so far translated two of Hrabal’s books into Japanese: I Served the English King and Postřižina.

Czech theologian and religionist Pavel Hošek presented an unusual interpretation of the author’s work at the conference on Thursday. In the recently published book Evangelium podle Hrabal, he used audio recordings of the writer’s Advent speeches from the Evangelical parish in Libica nad Cidlinou from the 1980s. According to him, they offer a breakthrough insight into the spiritual dimension of Hrabal’s thinking and work and apparently explain his orientation in biblical texts. “I don’t think we should rewrite everything that was said about Hrabal, but it is a new light that illuminates some aspects of his thinking,” Hošek said in his post.

Experts from Poland or Germany will speak in four blocks on the second day of the conference on Friday. One of the contributions will focus on the history of the construction of the cottage colony Kersko. “Friday is more focused on topographical, biographical and other significant connections and the context of Hrabal’s prose and poetry,” explains Jan Červinka, director of the Nymburk library, on behalf of the organizers. The organizers will summarize all contributions from the conference in a book, which should also include a transcription of Hrabal’s recently discovered recordings.

In Nymburk’s library, Hrabal’s supporters can see an exhibition of covers of foreign translations of his books under the name Global Hrabal. On Thursday, the organizers, in cooperation with the Nymburk grammar school, prepared staged readings and a screening of the documentary Hrabal’s cottage. On Friday, the group Tornádo Lue will perform, which also set some of Hrabal’s texts to music.

Two days of professional contributions will be followed on Saturday by an accompanying program, for example a commented literary walk through Nymburk or an excursion to Kersko. The detailed program can be found on the website. According to the organizers, Saturday’s events are fully booked.

Hrabal was born in March 1914 and died at the beginning of 1997. Before becoming a writer by profession, the native of Brno had a number of occupations, including a theater stagehand, a traveling salesman, and a paper packer in collecting raw materials. During his lifetime, he was, next to Milan Kundera, the most famous contemporary Czech novelist in the world, his work was translated into three dozen languages.