32 Facts About Bohumil Hrabal

Blecha's daughter, Drahomira Blechova-Kalvodova, says her father told her when she was 18 that Bohumil Hrabal was her half-brother.

Bohumil Hrabal worked there with her future husband, Frantisek Hrabal ; one Frantisek Hrabal was listed as Bohumil's godfather when he was baptised on 4 April 1914, but Frantisek was the first name of Bohumil's future step-grandfather, a soft-drinks trader.

Bohumil Hrabal is a prominent character in some of Hrabal's most famous fiction work, and in Gaps, the second volume of his autobiographical trilogy, Hrabal wrote that he declined an invitation to meet his biological father and considered Frantisek Hrabal to be his father.

Bohumil Hrabal's half-brother, Bretislav Josef Bohumil Hrabal, was born later that year; Bretislav, known as Slavek, is said to have been an excellent raconteur.

The family moved in August 1919 to Nymburk, a town on the banks of the Elbe River, where Frantisek Bohumil Hrabal became the manager of a brewery.

Bohumil Hrabal later recalled having a complex about this, and feeling embarrassed by her being the centre of attention.

Bohumil Hrabal's uncle was Bohuslav Kilian, a lawyer, journalist and publisher of the cultural magazines Salon and Mesic.

Bohumil Hrabal failed the first year, and later attended a technical secondary school in Nymburk.

In June 1934, Bohumil Hrabal left school with a certificate that said he could be considered for a place at university on a technical course.

Bohumil Hrabal took private classes in Latin for a year, passing the state exam in the town of Cesky Brod with an "adequate" grade on 3 October 1935.

Bohumil Hrabal graduated only in March 1946, as Czech universities were shut down in 1939 and remained so until the end of Nazi occupation.

Bohumil Hrabal worked variously as an insurance agent, a travelling salesman and a manual labourer alongside the graphic artist Vladimir Boudnik in the Kladno steelworks, an experience that inspired the "total realism" of texts such as Jarmilka that he was writing at the time.

Bohumil Hrabal lived in the city from the late 1940s onward, for much of it at 24 Na Hrazi ul.

In 1956, Bohumil Hrabal married Eliska Plevova, the 30-year-old daughter of Karel Pleva, procurator and manager of a wood factory in the South Moravian town of Breclav.

Bohumil Hrabal began as a poet, producing a collection of lyrical poetry in 1948, entitled Ztracena ulicka.

Bohumil Hrabal produced stories for the group, but did not seek publication.

Two stories by Bohumil Hrabal appeared in 1956 as a supplement in the annual Report of the Association of Czech Bibliophiles, which had a print-run of 250.

In 1975, Bohumil Hrabal gave an interview to the publication Tvorba in which he made self-critical comments, which enabled some of his work to appear in print, albeit typically in heavily edited form.

Bohumil Hrabal's interlocutors were anonymous in the journal, but it was later discovered that the published interview was at least a third version of the text, and that the more explicitly ideological statements were inserted by editors Karel Sys and Jaromir Pelc according to contemporary party doctrine.

Ludvik Vaculik, who had published his work in samizdat and would later continue to do so, defended him, saying that the interview demonstrated that Bohumil Hrabal was a writer of such standing that he could not be suppressed and the regime had had to acknowledge him.

Bohumil Hrabal avoided political engagement, and he was not a signatory of the Charter 77 civic initiative against the communist regime in 1977.

Bohumil Hrabal worked closely with Menzel on the script for Closely Watched Trains which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1968.

Bohumil Hrabal was a noted raconteur, and much of his story-telling took place in a number of pubs including, most famously, U zlateho tygra on Husova Street in Prague.

Bohumil Hrabal met the Czech President Vaclav Havel, the American President Bill Clinton and the US ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright at U zlateho tygra on 11 January 1994.

Bohumil Hrabal died in February 1997 after falling from a window on the fifth floor of Bulovka Hospital in Prague.

Some years later, Professor Dungl said he had no doubts about Bohumil Hrabal's death being a suicide.

Bohumil Hrabal was buried in the cemetery of Hradistko near Kersko.

Bohumil Hrabal affected the use of long sentences; his works Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age and Vita Nuova consist entirely of one single sentence.

Much of the impact of Bohumil Hrabal's writing derives from his juxtaposition of the beauty and cruelty found in everyday life.

Bohumil Hrabal is known for his "comic, slightly surreal tales about poor workers, eccentrics, failures, and nonconformists"; his early stories are about "social misfits and happily disreputable people".

Alongside fellow satirists Jaroslav Hasek, Karel Capek and Milan Kundera, Bohumil Hrabal is often described as one of the greatest Czech writers of the 20th century.

The complete works edition of Bohumil Hrabal spisy was published in the 1990s in 19 volumes by Prazska imaginace.