This encounter with the city of the Doges is a love letter to a place that arouses strong and often contradictory emotions, but rarely indifference. Petr Král’s ethereal prose, behind which echo the tones of his native Czech, carries us through the floating city as if exploring the body of a familiar yet inscrutable lover.
Král’s passion for Venice enriches us, all the more because, like all great loves, it appears to be forever on the point of dissolving. A portrait both intimate and universal, as elusive as Venice itself, this is a worthy successor to his highly successful Working Knowledge, published by Pushkin Press in 2008.
About the author
Petr Král, born in Czechoslovakia in 1941, was a member of the Czech surrealist movement alongside Vratislav Effenberger and the poet Vitezslav Nezval. He moved to Paris in 1968, where in the forty years since he has gained a considerable reputation as a prolific poet, essayist and film critic. He has also written a remarkable two-volume work on the burlesque comedies of the silent era. Petr Král lives and works in Paris and Prague where he returned in 2008.
