Literary criticism

Each book by Patrik Ouředník, the most translated Czech writer after 1989 thanks to his novel Europeana (2001), is an event. And not just because the master finds nourishment for his literary works from two different cultural traditions, from the Czech one he was born into and the French one he later adopted as his own. In particular, it is because of the general theme that is perceptible throughout all his writing: lexicographical, literary/historical, prosaic, poetic, dramatic and essayistic works on the theme of the relationship of language to literature. In his new book, Ouředník (born in 1957) summarised, in five sections, his occasional studies devoted to the treatment of language in general in translation and also specifically in Rabelais, in ancient Greece or nowadays. In addition to their critical edge, all his contributions have an immensely valuable quality: they are precise and clear, thorough and uncompromising, written in the best spirit of the Enlightenment. And, of course, they are not lacking in a sense of absurd humour.