Beyond the World of Men: Women’s Fiction at the Czech Fin de Siècle (Modern Czech Classics) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 8024656175 ISBN 13: 9788024656175

Publisher: Karolinum,Nakladatelstvi Univerzity Karlovy,Czech Republic, 2024

Synopsis

An inclusive collection of modern Czech short fiction that features overlooked women writers.

Bringing together Czech fiction published by women between 1890 and 1910, Beyond the World of Men presents works that confront pivotal issues of the time, including the “woman question” and women’s rights, class conflict, lesbian love, and the relationship between the aristocracy and the Czech peasantry (as in two stories originally written in German by the aristocrat Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach). The collection contains stories that are of literary merit, but also hold historical value. In these works, the authors offer trenchant social commentary while injecting both comic and sentimental elements into their writing, employing humanity and subtlety.

As a whole, the collection suggests a revision of the critical understanding of Czech literary modernism; these writers represent voices that were not usually heard in the male writing of the period. They also demand evaluation in their differing (but constant) reactions to earlier women’s writing in Czech and in other European languages, but particularly that of the central figure of Božena Nemcová, to whose canonic novel Babicka they constantly return.

About this title

About the Author

Geoffrey Chew is emeritus professor in musicology at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Edition details

• Publisher: Karolinum,Nakladatelstvi Univerzity Karlovy,Czech Republic
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 8024656175
• ISBN 13: 9788024656175
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 351
• Editor: Chew Geoffrey