Citizen Monte Cristo and Other Prose

The sixth volume of selected writings by Vladimír Macura presents the author's prose growing out of an authentic - and often admittedly autobiographical - experience of the contemporary Czech normalized (meaning post-1968 Soviet occupied) present, which they not only document but also expose and unmask. The novel Citizen Monte Christo (1993) and the short story collections Něžnými drápky (1983) and Hra na něco (1995) thematise characters who try their best to control their own lives through various social and communicative games, but this endeavour often leads them into bizarre and grotesque situations suggesting the absurdity of the world in which they must live and exist.