PENGUIN MODERN CLASSICS

CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS

Bohumil Hrabal (1914–97) was born and raised in Brno in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After working as a railway labourer, insurance agent, travelling salesman, manual labourer, paper-packer and stagehand, he published a collection of poetry that was quickly withdrawn by the communist regime. He went on to become one of the most important and most admired Czech writers of the twentieth century; his best-known books include I Served the King of England, Closely Watched Trains (made into an Academy Award-winning film directed by Jiri Menzel) and Too Loud a Solitude. He fell to his death from the fifth floor of a Prague hospital, apparently trying to feed the pigeons.

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First published in Czechoslovakia as Ostře sledované vlaky 1965

First published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape 1968

First published in Penguin Classics 2017

Text copyright © Bohumil Hrabal, 1965

Translation copyright © Jonathan Cape Ltd, 1968

The moral rights of the author and translator have been asserted

Cover: Photomontage by Samantha Johnson. Photographs © Getty Images

ISBN: 978-0-241-29023-1