Cabaret Hrabal - July 3rd 2014

Commissioned by the Czech Centre in the UK, Cabaret Hrabal was an Enemies project event, featuring 8 brand new commissions in response to the work of the great Czech avant gardist Bohumil Hrabal. It was a beautiful evening, a sell out at the Horse Hospital, with some extraordinary new live artworks presented by some of the most interesting vanguard poets of 21st century Britain. 
http://www.thehorsehospital.com/now/cabaret-hrabal/ 

”The world is maddeningly beautiful. Well, it isn’t really, but that is how I see it.” Bohumil Hrabal (uncle Peppin) A groundbreaking evening of literary experimentation and innovation celebrating the centenary of Bohumil Hrabal, one of the greatest Czech writers of the 20th century. Inspired by Hrabal’s work, brand new commissions from some of the UK most exciting poets, artists, conceptualists, theatre makers and dramaturges explore Hrabal’s magic world. Curated by poet and curator SJ Fowler. Featuring Zoe Skoulding (sound poetry), Sarah Kelly (book sculptures), Joshua Alexander (film art), Stephen Emmerson (conceptual performance), Marcus Slease (poetry), Tom Jenks (literary experiments), Eva Danickova (stage reading) and Lucinka Eisler (theatre). 

About Bohumil Hrabal
The Horse Hospital, Colonnade, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 1JD
One of the boundless figures of late 20th century Czech literature, Bohumil Hrabal was a novelist, a drinker, a bon vivant, an avant gardist, a railway dispatcher during the Nazi occupation, a traveling salesman, a steelworker, a recycling mill worker, a stagehand… His novels, which include Too Loud a Solitude, Closely Observed Trains, and I Served the King of England, were censored under the Communist regime, yet have since been translated into nearly thirty languages. A survivor of both the Nazi and Soviet occupations of Czechoslovakia, much of Hrabal’s work juxtaposes the darkness of history to the comic, human-scale happenings of the every-day. His oeuvre is as inimitable as his novels are unforgettable.