The Miracle Game
by Josef Škvorecký
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Description
A Czech writer in 1968 investigates the validity of a miracle that happened 20 years ago involving a statue of St. Joseph.Tags
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Member Reviews
A comedy of modern Czechoslovakia where the Prague Spring can be part miracle and part reality. History has seldom been more enjoyable.
This book was written by Josef Skvorecky - goodreads has erroneously credited the translator as the writer. It is an entertaining, amusing and moving account of the life of a young teacher in communist Czechoslovakia. This is my favourite of his books, along with "The Engineer of Human Souls".
I'm afraid I didn't really like this book at all and about the only thing I can recall of it is that fact that it took me an eternity to finish it. I've read a lot of Skvorecky and this one, though I hate to say it, was a bore.
A regény sebészi pontossággal tárja fel a vasfüggöny mögötti élet minden rezdülését. Általános érvényû, pszichológiai leírása ez nem csak a csehszlovát társadalom, hanem a kelet-európai emberek életútjának, ezen belüli választásainak és ezek következményeinek a diktatúra, majd a szelídebb arcát mutató szocialista rendszer éveiben Fergeteges humora segít elviselni az igazságot rólunk, akik ebben a rendszerben éltünk.
May 31, 2011Hungarian
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Author Information
87+ Works 3,315 Members
Josef Skvorecky was born in Nachod, Czechoslovakia on September 27, 1924. Under Nazi occupation, he was forced to work in an aircraft factory. He later read Philosophy at Charles University in Prague. He worked for the state publishing house, helping to translate books by Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner and Raymond Chandler. He began to write show more detective stories featuring Lieutenant Boruvka, which became popular with Czech readers. In 1958, his novel The Cowards was published and then banned on the grounds that it was "Titoist and Zionist." He and his wife moved to Canada after the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia that crushed the liberal reforms known as the Prague Spring. They founded 68 Publishers in 1971, which released more than 200 books by exiled Czech authors and those banned by the communists. Skvorecky's other written works include Miss Silver's Past, The Engineer of Human Souls, and The Miracle Game. In 1980, he received the Neustadt International Prize for Literature. He taught at the University of Toronto. He died on January 3, 2012 at the age of 87. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Awards and Honors
Notable Lists
Common Knowledge
- Original title
- Mirákl
- Important places*
- Praag, Tsjechië
- Dedication
- To Honzlova:
So little for so much.
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
- Genres
- General Fiction, Fiction and Literature, Historical Fiction
- DDC/MDS
- 891.8635 — Literature & rhetoric Literatures of other languages East Indo-European and Celtic literatures West and South Slavic languages (Bulgarian, Slovene, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Serbo-Croatian, and Macedonian) Czech Czech fiction 1900–1989
- LCC
- PG5038 .S527 .M513 — Language and Literature Slavic languages and literatures. Baltic languages. Albanian language Slavic. Baltic. Albanian Slavic Czech
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 222
- Popularity
- 147,790
- Reviews
- 4
- Rating
- (3.92)
- Languages
- 5 — Czech, English, German, Hungarian, Italian
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 16
- ASINs
- 2
