SOURCE: Schubert, Peter Z. Review of Hochzeiten im Hause, by Bohumil Hrabal. World Literature Today 64, no. 4 (autumn 1994): 847-48.

In the following review, Schubert comments on the German translation of Svatby v domě, noting its autobiographical elements.

The timing of the publication of Hochzeiten im Hause, the German translation of Svatby v domě (Weddings in the House; see WLT [World Literature Today] 63:I, p. 129), could not be better. While the book was being prepared for distribution, the author added to his collection of honors the most prestigious Czech literary award, the Jaroslav Seifert Prize, precisely for this autobiographical novel—although the book was published in Czech some six years earlier—and, almost at the same time, Susanna Roth, Hrabal's Swiss translator, received for her work the Pro Bohema Prize awarded to the best Bohemists. Even without the recent accolades, however, and the Nobel Prize nomination by the Czech PEN...