SOURCE: Bradbrook, B. R. Review of Listopadový uragán and The Death of Mr. Baltisberger, by Bohumil Hrabal. World Literature Today 65, no. 2 (spring 1991): 324-25.

In the following review, Bradbrook comments favorably on Listopadový uragán—Hrabal's account of the 1989 Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia—and praises Hrabal's short story collection The Death of Mr. Baltisberger for rejuvenating the beer-house genre.

Hurricanes are rare in Central Europe, but political events do sweep the region like those merciless storms. Having in mind the “December hurricane,” an 1897 Jewish pogrom in Prague, Bohumil Hrabal uses the title November Hurricane for his latest publication [Listopadový uragán], written during and referring to the events of 1989 in his native Czecho-Slovakia. It was on 17 November of that year when a “hurricane” in the form—paradoxically enough—of the “velvet revolution” caused the communist regime to crumble, but the change of political climate had already been felt...