Cesty s Bohumilem Hrabalem – Mazal Tomáš (2025)

This Czech-language literary guide takes readers to various places in Bohemia and Moravia connected with the life and work of the internationally renowned writer Bohumil Hrabal. Travellers and local readers visit his birthplace in Brno-Židenice, the breweries in Polná and Nymburk where he spent his childhood, and the legendary Na Hrázi (Eternity) lane in Prague, where house no. 24 once stood and where, in the early 1950s, Hrabal shared a bohemian period with the poet Egon Bondy and graphic artist Vladimír Boudník. The atmosphere of the former Libeň outskirts can still be found in the surrounding landscape, while visitors can pause in reflection before the surviving synagogue and the building of the former Svět automat restaurant. The guide also visits the cottage settlement in Kersko and its surroundings, as well as the pubs frequently visited by Hrabal and his friends, from ordinary establishments to famous venues such as U Pinkasů and the world-renowned U Zlatého tygra beer hall, where in 1994 he drank beer with Václav Havel and US President Bill Clinton. The book includes numerous photographs of Hrabal and previously unpublished documents from the author’s archive. It therefore serves not only as a guide but also as a literary work connected with Hrabal’s collected writings and monograph, a reach reflected in its Polish and Hungarian editions.