Divine Disorder and the Rescue of God is based on the idea that a kenotic approach is essential to a viable theology. It is deeply influenced by the way such an approach influenced the writings of Donald MacKinnon. Part I argues that God forces us to live in a state of uncertainty, even about God's existence. However compelling the sense of God's presence may be, religious experience cannot take that uncertainty away. We have to understand what sort of God would want to impose upon us the ...

A paranoid thriller of life under surveillance in Soviet Czechoslovakia.A deputy minister in the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Ludvík enjoys all the luxuries that success in the party affords him, but he must be careful: he’s under no illusions about the secret police bugging his apartment. Luckily, he and his wife, Anna, know where the bug is and where they can safely converse. However, any comfort they feel disappears the evening they attend an official part...

On its initial publication in Czech in 1942, Saturnin was a best seller, its gentle satire offering an unexpected—if temporary—reprieve from the grim reality of the German occupation. In the years since, the novel has been hailed as a classic of Czech literature, and this translation makes it available to English-language readers for the first time—which is entirely appropriate, for author Zdeněk Jirotka clearly modeled his light comedy on the English masters Jerome K. Jerome and ...

Summer of Caprice, a captivating comic novel first published in 1926, is a classic of Czech literature, yet it is little known elsewhere. Commonly considered untranslatable due to the complexities of the text, which is characterized by a playful narrative and an exceptional mastery of language, and its profound cultural context, it is rendered here in English that beautifully captures Vladislav Vančura’s experimental style—or, as the author himself called it, his “poetism in prose...

A favorite work of Czech humor, We Were a Handful depicts the adventures of five boys from a small Czech town through the diary of Petr Bajza, the grocer’s son. Written by Karel Poláček at the height of World War II before his deportation to Auschwitz in 1944, this book draws on the happier years of Poláček’s own childhood as inspiration. As we look upon the world through Petr’s eyes, we, too, marvel at the incomprehensible world of grownups; join in fights between gangs of neighb...

For The Pied Piper, Czech writer Viktor Dyk found his muse in the much retold medieval Saxon legend of the villainous, pipe-playing rat-catcher. Dyk uses the tale as a loose frame for his story of a mysterious wanderer, outcast, and would-be revolutionary—a dreamer typical of fin de siècle Czech literature who serves Dyk as a timely expression of the conflict between the petty concerns of bourgeois nineteenth-century society and the coming artistic generation. Impeccably rendered ...

The EU is one of the most notoriously complex international organisations. It is the only supranational organisation where nation-states agree to share sovereignty in some areas but not in others. At the heart of the EU debate across Europe are two opposing groups: one aims to devolve more sovereignty to the EU, with the aim of creating a European 'super-state' and the other wishes to devolve less, effectively relegating the EU to a mere discussion forum. In this accessible and engaging bo...

A favorite work of Czech humor, We Were a Handful depicts the adventures of five boys from a small Czech town through the diary of Petr Bajza, the grocer’s son. Written by Karel Poláček at the height of World War II before his deportation to Auschwitz in 1944, this book draws on the happier years of Poláček’s own childhood as inspiration. As we look upon the world through Petr’s eyes, we, too, marvel at the incomprehensible world of grownups; join in fights between gangs of neighb...

Ladislav Fuks (1923–94) was an outstanding Czech writer whose work, consisting primarily of psychological fiction, explores themes of anxiety and life in totalitarian systems. Fuks is best known for his works of short fiction set during the Holocaust, specifically “The Cremator,” a story—later made into a film—about a worker in a crematorium, who, under the influence of Nazi propaganda, murders his entire family.Written before the occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968 but not publis...

Jaroslav Hašek is a Czech writer most famous for his wickedly funny, widely read, yet incomplete novel The Good Soldier Schweik, a series of absurdist vignettes about a recalcitrant WWI soldier. Hašek—in spite of a life of buffoonery and debauchery—was remarkably prolific. He wrote hundreds of short stories that all display both his extraordinary gift for satire and his profound distrust of authority. Behind the Lines presents a series of nine short stories first publishe...

Signs of God reveals why discussion of the nature of miracles is of central rather than marginal importance where belief in God is concerned. Miracles cannot be shunted to one side as an embarrassing hangover from a 'pre-scientific age'. Miracles have played an important role in the history of all the major world religions, and many religious believers claim that they continue to do so. Yet they have also been criticized from a philosophical viewpoint as incompatible with a belief...

Summer of Caprice, a captivating comic novel first published in 1926, is a classic of Czech literature, yet it is little known elsewhere. Commonly considered untranslatable due to the complexities of the text, which is characterized by a playful narrative and an exceptional mastery of language, and its profound cultural context, it is rendered here in English that beautifully captures Vladislav Vančura’s experimental style—or, as the author himself called it, his “poetism in prose...