Egon Hostovský

The Hideout

Trans. Fern Long
The Hideout The Hideout
Pushkin Press, 2017, 128 pp
9781782272403
Language: English
Foreign rights:
Pluh
http://www.pluh.org
info@pluh.org
Goodreads rating
74.8% (Rated by 194 users)

A powerful and moving novel about one man’s final, fatal, heroic act of resistance in Nazi France.

Literary fiction

When a Czech engineer arrives in Paris in 1939, he cannot know that three years later he will be in hiding, confined to the damp, dark cellar of a French doctor. Alone with his memories, he writes to his “dearest Hanichka”, confessing everything: the hope of a love affair for which he travelled to Paris, the discovery of the German warrant for his arrest, and the murder he was forced to commit.

A claustrophobic classic of Czech literature, The Hideout is one man’s last love letter to his wife. As he contends with his failing eyesight and the loss of his teeth, so too must he grapple with the guilt of leaving his family and the dwindling hope of ever returning home.

More information on the publisher’s website.

Praise

“A superb writer”

Milan Kundera

“Hostovsky (The Arsonist), a Jewish Czech writer and distant relative of Stefan Zweig, explores madness, heroism, and salvation in this intense, dreamlike novella. […] This captivating novella dramatizes one man’s existential conflict within the larger, worldwide conflagration.”

Publishers Weekly

Pushkin Press, 2017, 128 pp
9781782272403
Language: English
Foreign rights:
Pluh
http://www.pluh.org
info@pluh.org
Goodreads rating
74.8% (Rated by 194 users)