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Unsound Siblings
Series: Modern Czech Classics
Brief Description
A new translation of Egon Bondy's classic critique and parody of Communist Czechoslovakia. Bondy's merry utopia, or rather anti-utopia, was written during the bleakest years of "normalization" in Communist Czechoslovakia during the 1970s. Once considered a cult novel of the Czech underground, Unsound Siblings is not...
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Format: Paperback / softback
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Description
A new translation of Egon Bondy's classic critique and parody of Communist Czechoslovakia.
Bondy's merry utopia, or rather anti-utopia, was written during the bleakest years of "normalization" in Communist Czechoslovakia during the 1970s. Once considered a cult novel of the Czech underground, Unsound Siblings is not only a celebration of the "alternative way of life" of people living deliberately outside of (Communist) state power and a mockery of the contemporary consumerist ideas of the police state, but also a light parody of science fiction, organically incorporating philosophical themes.
As much as this work can also be described as "adventure literature," evoking, for example, the scenery of a "mysterious island," its overall message reaches the power of a religious, gospel message that it is, despite all odds, possible to live in this world after all.
Unsound Siblings, first published in Czech by the exiled 68 Publishers in Toronto and circulated in samizdat copies in Czechoslovakia, later won the Egon Hostovskรฝ Prize.
Series: Modern Czech Classics
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Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9788024656274
Publisher: Karolinum,Nakladatelstvi Univerzity Karlovy,Czech Republic
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 04 August 2026
Country: Czechia
Imprint: Karolinum,Nakladatelstvi Univerzity Karlovy,Czech Republic
Illustration: 35 halftones
Contributors:
- Translated by Mark Corner
- Afterword by David Vaughan
- Illustrated by Jirรญ Grus
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Width: 130.0mm
Height: 190.0mm
Weight: 454g
Pages: 250
About the Author
Egon Bondy (1930โ2007) was a non-conformist writer and philosopher, influential especially in the Prague underground of the 1970s and 1980s. Mark Corner is a translator, author, and lecturer in religious and European studies who lives and works in Brussels.ย Jiลรญ Grus is an acclaimed Czech painter, comics illustrator, and screenwriter.
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