Úkryt

(The Hideout)

“A chilling short novel about a Czech man in hiding.”

— De Volkskrant

About the Book
Original TitleÚkryt
First Published1946
PublisherMelantrich, Prague
Pages130
The very first edition was published in 1943, in Texas, USA, by friends of the author
Rights Sold
United KingdomPushkin Press – London
DenmarkSilkefyret – Aarhus
The NetherlandsZirmiri – Amsterdam
TurkeyLivera – Izmir

During the war years Hostovský published probably one of his most remarkable works. In this short novel he made use of his own experiences when he was forced to flee Paris in 1940 amidst a large mass of despairing refugees trying to escape before the German army. Hostovský ended up in Normandy. The novel is about a Czech engineer who founds refuge in the dark cellar of a friend in Normandy. The text is one long goodbye letter, reflecting his life, to his wife in Prague shortly before the French resistance sends him on a suicide sabotage mission. .

A powerful and moving novel about one man’s fatal and heroic resistance against the Nazi regime in France, The Hideout is a novel of exile written by one of the great Czech writers of all time.

This book is not about the harshness of existence in a war, but rather the inner struggle between despair and faith. That he can address it to his ‘dear wife’, of whom he does not know how she is doing, is the only foothold he seems to have. The open-ended story leaves us just the same: adrift and detached.

— Mappalibri

“The Hideout is an important work of existentialism that recalls Albert Camus’s The Stranger and Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea in terms of probing the reality of self-knowledge and the nature of good and evil. Though dark, the novel has a poetry all its own. It contains awe-inspiring passages and a wondrous mysticism.”

— Shelf Awareness

“‘The Hideout’ is a singular text, certainly, but an important one, which bears reading for its insights into “dark times” present and past.”

— The Brooklyn Review

“Egon Hostovský again proves that he is the most gifted of the exiled Czech writers. ‘The Hideout’ is blessed with all the outstanding qualities of Hostovský’s art: strong tension, sharp characterization, a searching analysis of a “weak hero”, a perfect picture of a troubled time full of treason and turmoil.’”

— Books Abroad

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