Hrabal, Bohumil — Tierno Barbaro

Barcelona, Galaxia Gutenberg, 2014. Hardcover. Black boards with bw-photographic dj with red spine. 126 pp. with no illus. Text in Spanish (Castilian).The classic by Czech writer, Hrabal, Tierno Barbaro ("Tender Barbarian") was written in 1973, during the time when his work was banned by the political regime installed in power after the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet army that ended the Prague Spring. The main character of the novel is painter and poet, Vladimir Boudník, Hrabal's neighbor for many years, who discovered the avant-garde of the fifties and sixties, and who shared a steely sense of black humor. The solitary and eccentric Boudník committed suicide in December 1968, just months after the tanks of the Soviet Union overran the streets of Prague. Tender Barbarian is described by the French writer, Linda Le, as the exaltation of excess, extravagance, passion for breaking all models, while "a manual of misconduct, a festive lamentation, a breviary of the apocalypse." (paraphrased from the book jacket). New (still in shrinkwrap) .