Prague
need to know
(
1.98
)
million US dollars, paid for Franz Kafka’s
handwritten manuscript of The Trial
(
1984
)
year Czech poet and journalist Jaroslav
Seifert won the Nobel Prize for Literature
(
1924
)
year the word ‘robot’ was first used by
Czech writer Karel Čapek
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Barceló Praha Five
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tables, where built-in grills allow guests to cook their own
steaks and seafood, but I still recognise the side roomwhere
Kafka described his theatrical performances: “A narrow
podium, behind it a green curtain, this was the stage...”
Across town is the sprawling Café Louvre (
cafelouvre.
cz
),
where just about any Praguer who’d ever held a pen
Prague’s creatives
spend so much time
in bars for good meals
and good beer
spent time in the early 20th century. The Czech branch of
PEN International, the worldwide association of scribes,
was founded there in 1925, when 38 writers elected Karel
Čapek — author of
Rossum’s Universal Robots
(
which actually
coined the word ‘robot’) and
War with the Newts
—
their
first chairman. Shuttered in 1948 by the Communists, who
had thrown Louvre’s ornate and decidedly non-proletarian
fixtures out into the street, the café reopened in 1992,
offering the same luxurious atmosphere, attentive waiters,
complimentary paper and pencils on every table, and
—
perhaps most importantly — a room full of billiard tables.
When I arrive, I order a Becherovka and sit to watch
players, studying them — as a detective might — for clues.
As a young man finishes his turn, he places his billiard
cue against the wall, then scrawls a fewwords on a page of
Louvre’s stationery.
A romantic thought blossoms: could this be the start of
Prague’s next great novel? It’s certainly possible, so important
are these bars, alehouses and cafés in the story of the great
city’s story. Then again, he could just be keeping score.
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