Ta, jež povstala z krystalu - Pět povídkových knih se studií Vladimíra Papouška – Raffel Vladimír (2022)

The prose writer Vladimír Raffel (1898–1967) is not among the authors whose name is frequently mentioned in literary history. This quintessential intellectual, however prolific and undoubtedly creative, essentially produced all his work in the 1920s, after which he remained artistically silent for the rest of his life, dedicating himself to "only" his psychiatric practice. Nevertheless, he left an indelible mark in the history of Czech literature. The edition titled 'She Who Rose from the Crystal' represents Raffel's complete, book-published short story work published between 1927 and 1930, which, in the context of contemporary avant-garde creation, bears characteristic attributes of fascination with modern technology (electricity, machines, cinema, and more), which Raffel, originally a physician, modifies with imaginative inspirations stemming from his profession, interest in modern philosophy, thorough knowledge of modernist French literature, and an effort for a laconic literary experiment. Raffel's cycles 'Electric Stories', 'Body Stories', 'Pathetic Stories', 'Dance Stories', and 'Proto-Stories', still rather overlooked, vividly complement and equally slightly blur the image of Czech interwar avant-garde through the work of this artistic solitary with a rich imagination and sense...