Europeana – Stručné dějiny dvacátého věku

(Europeana. A Brief History of the Twentieth Century)

Book of the Year 2001

“Top Shelf 2005: Europeana, one of our 25 favorite books.”

— The Village Voice (USA)

“An original booklet that is as funny as it is relentless.”

— Süddeutsche Zeitung

About the Book
Original TitleEuropeana – Stručné dějiny dvacátého věku
First Published2001
PublisherPaseka, Prague
Rerelease 2012
PublisherVolvox Globator, Prague
Pages 128
Rights Sold
FranceAllia – Paris
HungaryKalligram – Budapest
The NetherlandsFagel – Amsterdam / IJzer – Utrecht
AustriaCzernin – Vienna
PolandFundacja Pogranicze – Sejny
SerbiaB92 Publishers – Belgrade
United StatesDalkey – Chicago
SwedenNatur och kultur – Stockholm / Apsekt – Vallentuna
BulgariaFaakel – Sofia
LithuaniaApostrofa – Vilnius
SpainTropismos – Salamanca
GreeceKedros – Athens
ItalyDuepunti Edizione – Palermo / Quodlibet – Macerata
Israel Xargol – Tel Aviv
SloveniaBorec – Ljubljana
CroatiaProfil International – Zagreb
DenmarkGyldendal – Kopenhagen
TurkeyDost Kitabevi – Ankara
RussiaLimbakh – St. Petersburg
Georgia Pegasus – Tibilisi
EgyptAl Arabi – Cairo
JapanHakusui-sha – Tokyo
RomaniaVremea – Bucharest
NorwayBokvennen – Oslo
SlovakiaPremedia – Bratislava
KoreaThe Open Books Co – Paju Book City
UkraineOld Lion – Lviv
LatviaPetergailis – Riga
BelarusLohvinau – Minsk/Vilnius
North MacedoniaTemplum – Skopje
AlbaniaOmbra gvg – Tirana
EstoniaLoomingu Raamatukogu – Talinn
PortugalAntigona – Lisboa
TaiwanDomain Publishing – Taipei City
FinlandSiltala Publishers – Helsinki
PhilippinesCzech emnbassy – Manila
ArmeniaVogi-Nairi – Yerevan
Stage Rights Sold (Selection)
Dutch Zuidpool, Antverp
English/German The Artangel Trust, London
EnglishRoyal Shakespeare Company, London
GermanSchauspiel Stuttgart
ItalianAssociazione Culturale Sotterraneo, Florence
ItalianAssociazione Mittelfest, Cividale del Friuli
SwedishKungliga Dramatiska Teatern
FinnishNordic Drama Corner Oy
English/German PLAN B, Hamburg

Tracing the Great War through the Millennium Bug, 1999 through 1900, Dadaism through Scientology through Sierra Leonean bicycle riding and back, award-winning Czech author Patrik Ourednik explores the horror and absurdity of the twentieth century in an explosive deconstruction of historical memory.

Europeana: A Brief History of the Twentieth Century opens on the beaches of Normandy in 1944, comparing the heights of different forces’ soldiers and considering how tall, long, or good at fertilizing fields the men’s bodies will be. Probing the depths of humanity and inhumanity, this is an account of history as it has never been told: “engaging, even frightening.” At once recreating and uncreating the twentieth century, Ourednik explores the connections across the decades between the disparate figures, events, and politics we thought we knew.

Patrik Ourednik’s Europeana merits the author’s reputation as a giant of post-1989 Czech literature. Now translated into 37 languages, the book is a masterwork of cubism, a polymorphic monologue of statistics and movements and fine print and discoveries that evokes the deadpan absurdity of Kafka and the gallows humor of Hašek. Ourednik has created a mesmerizing, maddening account of the past, and his interrogation of “truth” and objectivity resonates now more than ever.

“Enthralled by matters of language, Ouředník offers a burlesque vision of the history of contemporary Europe, combining the tragic aspect of the situation with anecdotal facts that stress the absurdity of the twentieth century.”

— Le Temps

“Heir of Kafka and of the good soldier Svejk, Ouředník takes advantage of the interval between facts of an irrefutable precision to create summaries as disconcerting as they are pre-emptory.”

— Radio France

“Ouředník’s idea is brilliant: in order to draw the map of this century and decide on the most important events, he simply presents in a jumble hundreds of historical facts ranging from trifling anecdotes to crucial statistics… Europeana reads like a frenzied encyclopaedic compression of thousands of history books; it’s cleverly constructed and more subjective than it first appears… Laughs guaranteed, uneasiness probable, impressions strong: in short a great book.”

— Chronic’art

Translations