Žalmy z Petfieldu - Egon Hostovský, příběh spisovatele dvacátého století – Papoušek Vladimír (2012)

The essayistic book Psalms from Petfield presents the life and work of Egon Hostovský in the broader context of the historical events of the 20th century, of which the writer was both a witness and a victim. The author seeks to intertwine his interpretation of the author's work with the language of contemporary letters and documents, based on which a number of connections related to the transformations of the author's poetics can be uncovered, illuminating the contrasts or parallels between the language of Hostovský's fiction and the language of the author himself in non-fictional types of texts. The introductory chapter of the book reflects on the theme of the writer and ideology, followed by three chapters that deal with the author's life and work during the first exile, after 1948, and in the period from the 1960s until his death in 1973. The work not only brings a number of previously unpublished contemporary materials and texts (e.g., Manipulation of the Zhdanov line in Czechoslovakia) and entirely new information about the life and work of Egon Hostovský, but also offers a specific perspective on the fate of the modern writer amidst the turbulence of 20th-century history.