Monikova, Libuse

New York. 1991. November 1991. Knopf. 1st American Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket. 0394572505. Translated from the German by John E. Woods. 375 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration by Donald Keene. Jacket design by Archie Ferguson . keywords: Literature Translated Czech Eastern Europe Women Germany. FROM THE PUBLISHER - From Libuse Moniková - one of the first important female voices from Central Europe - an explosive act of the imagination: a funny and picaresque novel whose first part, Inner Bohemia, assembles the players and sets the ground rules for the mad romp of the second, Outer Siberia. The players are the raison d'être behind the novel's subtitle: M.N.O.P.Q. are the artists Maltzahn, Orten, and Podol, who've shrewdly arranged (in Part One) to undertake the apparently unending task of restoring the frescoes of Friedland, Bohemia's greatest Renaissance castle; and Nordanc and Qvietone, two archivists, one charmingly gay, the other endearingly pedantic; and their lovers, friends, and enemies. As they reinvent the intricate frescoes of the grand myths past, these men give their own lives and loves historical and artistic meaning. In Outer Siberia, Maltzahn, Orten, Podol, Nordanc and Qvietone are on their way to Japan to work on an extremely unlikely fresco commission when they are kidnapped (sort of) by bored Russian academics of the Siberian Academy of Sciences in Akademgorodok. Their subsequent adventures are a study in the art of writing satire, as Russians and Czechs recapitulate their furious mutual history against the savage and icy beauty of the Siberian landscape, simultaneously chronicling Czechoslovakia's journey into the twentieth century and allowing the reader, as well, to rethink Part One, which now takes on new meaning and directions. Brilliantly translated by John E. Woods, THE FAÇADE comprises politics and romance and hilarity - a triumph of the literary imagination and the debut of a wonderful new voice in European literature. inventory #15512 ISBN: 0394572505.