Cremator (Modern Czech Classics) - Softcover

Fuks, Ladislav

Softcover

ISBN 10: 802463290X ISBN 13: 9788024632902

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2016

Synopsis

"The devil's neatest trick is to persuade us that he doesn't exist." Giovanni Papini It is a maxim that both rings true in our contemporary world and pervades this tragicomic novel of anxiety and evil set amid the horrors of World War II. As a gay man living in a totalitarian, patriarchal society, noted Czech writer Ladislav Fuks identified with the tragic fate of his Jewish countrymen during the Holocaust. The Cremator arises from that shared experience. Fuks presents a grotesque, dystopian world in which a dutiful father, following the strict logic of his time, liberates the souls of his loved ones by destroying their bodies first the dead, then the living. As we watch this very human character a character who never ceases to believe that he is doing good become possessed by an inhuman ideology, the evil that initially permeates the novel's atmosphere concretizes in this familiar family man. A study of the totalitarian mindset with stunning resonance for today, The Cremator is a disturbing, powerful work of literary horror.

About this title

About the Author

Ladislav Fuks (1923 94) was a Czech writer of primarily psychological fiction. His novels include Mr. Theodore Mundstock. Eva M. Kandler is a translator of Czech origin who has lived in the United Kingdom since the 1960s. Rajendra A. Chitnis is a senior lecturer in Czech, Slovak, and Russian literature at the University of Bristol, UK.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 802463290X
• ISBN 13: 9788024632902
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 180