'One of the greatest European prose writers' Philip Roth

In the autumn of 1965, Bohumil Hrabal bought a weekend cottage in the countryside east of Prague. There, until his death, he tended to an ever-growing, unruly community of cats. This is his confessional, tender and shocking meditation on the joys and torments of his life with them; how he became increasingly overwhelmed by the demands of the things he loved, even to the brink of madness.

'Dark and strange ... It begins with warmth and fluffiness, but soon descends into Dostoevskian horror' Daily Telegraph

'The Czech master exposed the animal within us' New Yorker

A gem of a book about the aggravations and great joys of cats from a literary master.

About the Author
Bohumil Hrabal was one of the most important and admired Czech writers of the twentieth century. He was born and raised in Brno in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1914. After working as a railway labourer, insurance agent, travelling salesman, manual labourer, paper-packer and stagehand, he published a collection of poetry that was quickly withdrawn by the communist regime. His best-known books include I Served the King of England, Closely Watched Trains (made into an Academy Award-winning film directed by Jiri Menzel) and Too Loud a Solitude. In 1997, he fell to his death from the fifth floor of a Prague hospital, apparently trying to feed the pigeons.

Reviews
One of the great prose stylists of the 20th century; the scourge of state censors; the gregarious bar hound and lover of gossip, beer, cats and women -- Parul Sehgal
Hrabal, to my mind, is one of the greatest European prose writers -- Philip Roth
Hrabal was, for all his eccentricity, a major figure in 20th-century world literature -- Jonathan Coe
The very best writer -- Milan Kundera
A most sophisticated novelist, with a gusting humor and a hushed tenderness of detail -- Julian Barnes
A stunningly revealing, occasionally deranged exploration of self, with cat ownership the frame through which that exploration is presented, by one of postwar Europe's greatest writers -- Kevin O'Rourke * Michigan Quarterly Review *



Book Information
ISBN 9780241422199
Author Bohumil Hrabal
Format Paperback
Page Count 96
Imprint Penguin Classics
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Weight(grams) 78g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 5mm