BOOKPATHS

Franz Kafka Museum, Prague, Czech Republic

Open daily, Prague’s Franz Kafka (1883-1924) Museum celebrates the life and work of the famous writer.  Diaries, photographs, letters, and first editions of Kafka’s works are just some of the items on display.  In addition, a gift shop offers books by the author and other Kafka-related items.  For travel and biographical information, visit the Franz Kafka Museum website.

Prague, Czech Republic

Ian Kelly travels to Casanova’s Prague.

Casanova walked these streets in the 1780s, sometimes with Mozart’s librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte, often with Count Waldstein and the Prince de Ligne, the old roué’s sponsors in his final years, spent exiled from Venice and writing his voluminous memoirs in Bohemia. Perhaps Casanova watched young lovers in the fruit market and reminisced – from “Casanova: Prague’s Priest of Pleasure,” by Ian Kelly, The Times

Prague, Czech Republic

Nicholas Kulish follows in the footsteps of Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

“But The Unbearable Lightness of Being, first published in a French translation from Czech in 1984, is no love letter to the city; it is a message from a time of oppression, and one worth carrying for perspective on a trip through Prague. Mr. Kundera submerges the reader in the undercurrents of political life, the rough passages of far-too-recent vintage and the personal repercussions of an invasive, claustrophobic time.” – from “Trumping the Unbearable Darkness of History,” by Nicholas Kulish, New York Times

Bookpath: Prague, Czech Republic

“In the Footsetps of Franz Kafka” is “a cultural and educational program” offered by The Franz Kafka Society in cooperation with the Education and Culture Centre of the Jewish Museum of Prague. The 90-minute program includes a short introduction to Kafka’s life and work and visits to the Franz Kafaka Library and other Kafka-related sites, including “Maiselova Street, Franz Kafka Square, Little Square (Malé náměstí), the Old Town Square (southern part), Železná Street, Fruit Market (Ovocný trh), Celetná Street, Old Town Square (eastern and northern parts), Dlouhá Street, and the Franz Kafka Monument (in front of the Jewish Museum).” Tours are offered in Czech, English, German and Spanish. For information on joining a tour, visit The Franz Kafka Society website.

Czech Republic

Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being has finally “been released in the author’s homeland.”

“Atlantis said that the book had sold out since its publication last month and Jiri Bilek, of Luxor Book Palace, in Prague, said: ‘We have been selling around 100 copies a day.’” – from “The Unbearable Wait is Over as Kundera's Lost Novel Goes Home,” by Bojan Pancevski, The Times