![]() ![]() Prague’s modernity undermines easy distinctions between east and west, good and evil, right and wrong. Things look different when viewed from Central Europe. Biographies like Ada’s are why Prague provides a more revealing vantage point on the modern condition than the western capitals from which we are accustomed to look out, naively equating history with progress. ![]() Like countless other men and women-writers and politicians, architects and athletes, journalists and filmmakers, artists, musicians, and comedians-his story shows why Czech dissidents sardonically baptized their country Absurdistan. His life was extraordinary, and yet it was thoroughly representative of Czechoslovakia’s twentieth century. Hoffmeister died of a heart attack on July 24, 1973. I have recently published a short essay on the eventful life of the “Czech writer, publicist, dramatist, painter, illustrator, scenographer, caricaturist, translator, diplomat, lawyer, professor, and traveler” (as he is described in the Czech Wikipedia French Wikipedia adds “and radio commentator”) Adolf Hoffmeister (1902–1973), known to his friends as Ada.Ī central character in my book Postcards from Absurdistan: Prague at the End of History, Hoffmeister wrote the libretto for Hans Krása’s children’s opera Brundibár, which was staged 55 times in the notorious Terezín (Theresienstadt) ghetto during 1943-4 before the composer, the set designer František Zelenka, and most of the children in the cast were deported to Auschwitz and murdered. Photo by Václav Chochola, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons I am honored to be in such distinguished company.Īdolf Hoffmeister on terrace of Les deux magots café, Paris, 1969. ![]() The other finalist was The World the Plague Made: The Black Death and the Rise of Europe, James Belich, Princeton University Press. The European History category winner was Who’s Black and Why? A Hidden Chapter from the Eighteenth-Century Invention of Race, edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. “Our 25-judge panel evaluated this year’s entries to select 105 titles as finalists, further naming 40 exceptional titles to be honored as Category Winners.” “The 2023 PROSE Award entries considered by our judges illustrate the wide breadth of excellence, diversity, and merit in scholarly works published today, in all areas of academic study,” commented Emily Bokelman, Manager, Member Programs, AAP. I am gratified that Postcards from Absurdistan: Prague at the End of History was chosen as one of three finalists for the Association of American Publishers PROSE Award for European History. ![]()
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