Ewald Osers Libri

Kolya, here beautifully translated by Ewald Osers, is the novelization of the Czech film of the same name, which won both the 1997 Oscar and Golden Globe awards for Best Foreign Language Film. Set in Prague in 1988—just before the Velvet Revolution—it tells the story of Louka, a virtuoso performer with the Czech Philharmonic, who has been banned from playing by the state. Now he finds himself playing at cemeteries for a living. Adding to his problems, an illegal arranged marriage has left the hardened bachelor with a little Russian boy to care for. From these elements, Zdenek Sverak—who also played Louka in the film—has woven an enduring tale of the transforming powers of music, language, and love.

This richly detailed biography of a key figure in nineteenth-century philosophy pays equal attention to the life and to the work of Arthur Schopenhauer. Rudiger Safranski places this visionary skeptic in the context of his philosophical predecessors and contemporaries Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel--and explores the sources of his profound alienation from their "secularized religion of reason." He also provides a narrative of Schopenhauer's personal and family life that reads like a Romantic novel: the struggle to break free from a domineering father, the attempt to come to terms with his mother's literary and social success (she was a well-known writer and a member of Goethe's Weimar circle), the loneliness and despair when his major philosophical work, The World as Will and Representation, was ignored by the academy. Along the way Safranski portrays the rich culture of Goethe's Weimar, Hegel's Berlin, and other centers of German literary and intellectual life.When Schopenhauer first proposed his philosophy of "weeping and gnashing of teeth," during the heady "wild years" of Romantic idealism, it found few followers. After the disillusionments and failures of 1848, his work was rediscovered by philosophers and literary figures. Writers from Nietzsche to Samuel Beckett have responded to Schopenhauer's refusal to seek salvation through history.The first biography of Schopenhauer to appear in English in this century, Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy succeeds in bringing to life an intriguing figure in philosophy and the intellectual battles of his time, whose consequences still shape our world.

Works selected from twenty-five poets from the Balkan regions, based on volumes published during the past twenty years. ""Many of the poems evoke peasant art from Yugoslovia, of which much of Macedonia was a part for much of this century. Brilliant and ornate, with vivid dreamlike images, the work of Slavko Janevski is painterly in the extreme...Mateja Matevski's hard-edged poems offer a glory of crammed imagery...Osers' selections make us hunger for more"" - Booklist. ""A valuable contribution to our appreciation of Macedonian poetry as one of the most vibrant in world literatures"" - Slavic Review.

Un geniale apologo pieno di spirito e amara ironia significativamente scritto nel 1936: in una baia dei mari del Sud viene scoperta una strana e mite "salamandra" antropomorfa. I primi esemplari vengono usati nella pesca delle perle o portati in giro nei circhi. Poi si scopre che le salamandre imparano a parlare facilmente e si comincia a usarle come manodopera (alquanto schiavizzata) per complesse lavorazioni subacquee e iniziano agevoli tentativi di "civilizzarle": esilaranti per forza parodistica i passi nei quali si narra la loro evangelizzazione religiosa e politica... Rapidamente si arriva al loro uso militare da parte delle nazioni "civili". Altrettanto rapidamente nasce la coscienza di essere un popolo e le conoscenze acquisite vengono ritorte contro il genere umano: crolli sottomarini dovuti a esplosioni provocate dalle geniali salamandre artificiere (che ormai si autogovernano e obbediscono a una sorta di Re che trasmette i suoi diktat e le sue condizioni agli uomini con trasmissioni radio) aprono voragini sempre più ampie lungo le coste: New Orleans è tra le prime città a essere devastate dall'avanzata dei flutti. Ma anche tra il popolo delle salamandre nascono divisioni, si generano fazioni e inizia una guerra intestina che porterà alla distruzione globale...

Old Masters (1985) is Thomas Bernhard's devilishly funny story about the friendship between two old men. For over thirty years Reger, a music critic, has sat on the same bench in front of a Tintoretto painting in a Viennese museum, thinking and railing against contemporary society, his fellow men, artists, the weather, even the state of public lavatories. His friend Atzbacher has been summoned to meet him, and through his eyes we learn more about Reger - the tragic death of his wife, his thoughts of suicide and, eventually, the true purpose of their appointment. At once pessimistic and exuberant, rancorous and hilarious, Old Masters is a richly satirical portrait of culture, genius, nationhood, class, the value of art and the pretensions of humanity.

Bilingvní, česko-anglické vydání básně Vítězslava Nezvala.

Although Seifert lived through the many historic turns of his homeland, his was not a political poetry, except in its constant expression of love for his homeland, its beauties and its values. He was the great poet of Prague, of love, of the senses. His work was unpretentious, lyrical yet irreverent, earthy, charming. Seifert was known for the simplicity of his verse, yet his poems are full of surprises, never what at first they seem.

Hanka ha capelli ramati e occhi verdi. Il giorno in cui arriva a Auschwitz-Birkenau con i genitori e il fratello, a lei tocca in sorte la corsia di sinistra e sopravvive. Hanka è ebrea, ha 15 anni, ma finge di essere diciottenne e ariana. Ora si chiama Bambola ed è una delle prostitute più giovani del bordello Nr. 232 Ost sul fronte orientale. Sulla pancia porta tatuata la parola Feldhure, puttana da campo. Inizia così il lungo calvario di Hanka che combatte il freddo e la fame, la paura e la vergogna, sostenuta dal desiderio indomito di sopravvivere, costi quel che costi, e da una fiducia che non verrà mai meno. Lustig è uno dei più importanti esponenti della letteratura ceca, un protagonista del Novecento. Nei suoi occhi verdi è un romanzo straordinario - tradotto in numerose lingue - che porta il lettore nel mondo di Hanka, lo fa combattere con lei, partecipe di un profondo senso della speranza e della trascendenza.

Czech writer Vitezslav Nezval (1900-58) was one of the leading Surrealist poets of the 20th century. Prague with Fingers of Rain is his classic 1936 collection in which Prague’s many-sided life – its glamorous history, various weathers, different kinds of people – becomes symbolic of what is contradictory and paradoxical in life itself.

"The voice [in these stories] is clear and intelligent and brave. Mr. Klima has climbed the mast." New York Times