Básně a prózy (1949-1955) – Bondy Egon (2023)

The new, most textually reliable edition of the poetic and also marginally prose work of Egon Bondy from the first half of the 1950s represents one of the logical outcomes and continuations of the literature of the second generation of Czech surrealists. It is unique in that, in the situation of harsh Stalinist totality, it was completely free, not subject to any censorship restrictions, and brought reflections of the time of its creation, a time when its official publication was entirely excluded. We select six original poetry collections and two lyrical-epic compositions: Total Realism, Awkward Poetry, Prague Life, Dagmara or Over-emotionality, Für Bondy’s unbekannte Geliebte or Inexhaustible Wealth, The Big Book, The Small Book, and Remnants of the Epic. Preceding these in the volume is a previously unpublished prose piece titled 2000, a hybrid textual collage that mixes elements of essayistic reflections, scholarly treatises, reportage, restylized diary entries, dreamlike poetic images and evocations, polemics, and categorically, uncompromisingly articulated ideological and aesthetic postulates. The volume was prepared by expert and long-time editor of Bondy's work, Martin Machovec.