AUTHORS OF THE WORLD...BOHUMIL HRABAL by Pratim Das

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AUTHORS OF THE WORLD...BOHUMIL HRABAL...WATERCOLOUR...10CM * 10 CM....2013...Bohumil Hrabal (Czech pronunciation: [ˈboɦumɪl ˈɦrabal]) (28 March 1914 – 3 February 1997) was a Czech writer, regarded by many Czechs as one of the best writers of the 20th century. Bohumil Hrabal was born in Brno (Balbínova ul. 47, Židenice district ) in what was then the province of Moravia in the Austro-Hungarian empire to an unmarried mother, Marie Božena Kiliánová (b. 1894-d. 10 February 1970). Hrabal began as a poet, producing a collection of lyrical poetry in 1948 (Ztracená ulička). It was withdrawn from circulation when the communist regime was established. In the early 1950s, Hrabal was a member of an underground literary group run by Jiří Kolář, an artist, poet, critic and central figure in Czechoslovak culture. (Another member of the group was the novelist Josef Škvorecký.) Hrabal produced stories for the group, but did not seek publication. Two stories by Hrabal (Hovory lidí) appeared in 1956 as a supplement in the annual Zprávy spolku českých bibliofilů (Report of the Association of Czech Bibliophiles). It had a print-run of 250. Hrabal's first book was withdrawn a week before publication, in 1959. It was eventually published in 1963, as Perlička na dně (Pearl on the Bottom). In the same year, he became a writer by profession. Taneční hodiny pro starší a pokročilé (Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age) followed in 1964 and Ostře sledované vlaky (Closely Observed Trains) in 1965. He died when he fell from a window on the fifth floor of the Bulovka hospital in Prague where he was apparently trying to feed pigeons. It was noted that Hrabal lived on the fifth floor of his apartment building and that suicides by leaping from a fifth-floor window were mentioned in several of his books.[citation needed] He was buried in his family's crypt in a cemetery in Hradištko. As he wished, he was buried in an oak coffin with the inscription Pivovar Po