1967 Bohumil Hrabal - Presentation copy

Bohumil Hrabal – Toto město je ve společné péči obyvatel [This City Is in the Common Care of Its Inhabitants]. Photographs by Miroslav Peterka. Prague: Československý spisovatel, 1967. Quarto (24.5 × 17.5 cm). Original typographic wrappers. Ca. 100 pp. Czech photo-text collaboration pairing Hrabal’s associative prose with Peterka’s stark documentary photographs of Prague streets, signage, shopfronts, passersby, and urban debris; among the most visually compelling books of the 1960s in Czechoslovakia. Presentation/association copy, signed by Hrabal in blue ink on the title page. Laid in is a single autograph note written on both sides and signed “Váš Hrabal.” One side reads: “Srdečně zdravím a děkuji, Váš Hrabal” (“Warm greetings and thanks, yours, Hrabal”); the verso includes the characteristic Hrabalian reflection: “Vítězný cíl snižuje únavu, ale zvyšuje počet dopravních nehod … V Kersku, listopad 83, měsíc po tom kdy jsem si rozbil Escorta 13 a 2 žebra” (“A victorious goal lessens fatigue, but increases the number of traffic accidents … In Kersko, November ’83, a month after I wrecked the Escort 13 and broke two ribs”). Bookplate of Ivan Hrdina. Very good condition. Wrappers with two approx. 1 cm closed tears; light edge wear and minor toning. Internally clean and well preserved. Ivan Hrdina was a Czech bibliophile and collector associated with Prague literary and artistic circles during the late socialist period. InvG4