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Former exiles, current expatriates, Czech
natives, and wayward travelers come together to tell their
stories in Travelers’ Tales Prague and the Czech
Republic. These stories are entertaining, enlightening,
and laugh-out-loud funny, and the writers revel in the country’s
major landmarks—from the 14th-century, sculpture-lined
Charles Bridge to the magical medieval town of Cesky Krumlov—revealing
why this country (and its bewitching capital) has a pull like
no other place.
Francine Prose muses on southern Bohemia’s
fairy tale appearance; Mary Morris goes on a Kafka-esque journey
to the castle; Aaron Harmburger laments the loss of a friend;
supermodel Paulina Porizkova reminisces about her exile and
return to the country of her birth; Patricia Hampl waxes on
the art of the wasted day; and Helen Epstein searches for
clues to her Jewish ancestry in a small town in east Bohemia.
In Travelers’ Tales Prague and
the Czech Republic you will:
- Wander Kafka’s cobblestone streets in search of
the Castle with Mary Morris
- Follow Brad Wetzler through southern Bohemia’s
forests with a bevy of sausage-gobbling beer-swilling tramps
- Marvel at the bewitching bone church in Kutná
Hora with Timothy Weston
- Find out if D. A. Blyler takes “cash” or
“trade” as an English teacher at a Czech brothel
- Take a breather with Patricia Hampl, as she discovers
the slow life in Prague
- Attend a performance-art show gone hilariously wrong
in Plzen with Robert Glick
- Haggle with Prague’s not-so-true-blue police over
a minor traffic infraction with Myla Goldberg
- Explore the magnificent castles of the Czech countryside
with Francine Prose
- Discover the still-possible expatriate writer’s
life in Prague with Robert Eversz...and much more.
Notable authors include Jan Morris, Thomas
Swick, Phil Cousineau, Mary Morris, Francine Prose, Paulina
Porizkova, Aaron Hambuger, Myla Goldberg, Helen Epstein, Patricia
Hampl, and others.
David Farley lived in
Prague for three years. When he wasn’t teaching English,
sitting in pubs, or teaching English while sitting in pubs,
he was trying to reach the most remote corners of the country
via train, bus, or on foot. He’s lived with a classic
rock-loving, gas-sniffing addict in a crumbling Communist-era
high rise (the story of which was published in The Best
Travelers’ Tales 2004), attended a pig killing on
the Czech-Austrian border (see “Natural Born Pig Killers”
in this collection), and, most recently, for Condé
Nast Traveler, bewildered Czech villagers in a spaceship-looking
convertible with Michigan license plates. Today, he’s
a freelance writer living in New York City. His writing has
appeared in New York Magazine, Time Out New York, Condé
Nast Traveler, Travel + Leisure, Arthur Frommer’s Budget
Travel, Playboy, BlackBook, Chicago Tribune, and The
Washington Post. He recently won a Lowell Thomas Award
for travel magazine writing. He teaches writing at Gotham
Writers’ Workshop and New York University. Please visit
his website, www.dfarley.com.
Jessie Sholl has called
a pup tent home while gutting salmon in an Alaskan fish cannery,
been caught in a hurricane in Belize, and hiked across southern
Bohemia and Moravia. She holds an M.F.A. in creative writing
from the New School, where she teaches fiction writing, and
has had short stories published in several literary journals,
including Other Voices, CutBank, Lit, and Fiction.
She has been awarded residencies to The Writers’ Colony
at Dairy Hollow and Ragdale, and is currently finishing her
first novel, You Are Here. As a freelance editor, her
clients have included magazines, web sites, and novelists.
Jessie lives in New York City with her husband, David Farley,
and their dog, Abraham Lincoln. She can be reached at www.jessie-sholl.com.
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