Vita Nuova is the second in a trilogy of memoirs written from the perspective of Bohumil Hrabal’s wife, Eliska, about their life in Prague from the 1950s to the 1970s, when Communist repression of artists was at its peak. Hrabal’s inimitable humor, which in Eliska’s ruminations ranges from bawdy slapstick to cutting irony, is all the more penetrating for being directed at himself.
Vita Nuova
showcases Hrabal’s legendary bohemian intellectual life, particularly his relationship with Vladimir Boudnik. Hrabal creates a shrewd, lively portrait of Eastern European intellectual life in the mid-twentieth century.