Flea Market

“I have no intention of writing my memoirs, even though I’m the right age for it. The thought of it is distant from me, and objectionable—like writing poetry, it is too personal and too intimate. I can write poetry only as parody; I might manage a parody of my memoirs, too, but what would be the point, as they are scattered about my novels and short stories? A letter I once wrote to Ludvík Vaculík, which is included here, contains a kind of digest of my life story, and I don’t intend to go any further. Still, one could say that all the writings in Flea Market—essays, feuilletons, reviews, columns and other, unclassifiable pieces—are my literary and life’s confession. Profiles of writers and reviews of their books have long served as a pretext for me to bare my innermost thoughts; I might say the same about the architecture of Brno, my interpretation of which in this volume gives a deep—very deep—insight into my soul. So in this sense Flea Market is the most personal of my books.” – Jiří Kratochvil