Teige and the Harlequin
Jiří Kamen (b. 1951) is a Czech writer, cultural journalist and author of radio plays and documentaries. He studied at Palacký
University in Olomouc and has worked for Czech Radio since 1975. His books move between fiction, biography and
documentary writing. His short-story collection Elvis of the Elbe (2018) was nominated for the Magnesia Litera. With Pavla Horáková, he co-authored two books based on letters and diaries from the First World War. His lifelong interest in modern art and Surrealism informs this portrait of Teige and his circle.
Teige and the Harlequin
Stories of the Czech Avant-Garde
344 pages | Illustrated | English synopsis
The exuberance and tragedy of a generation that wanted to reinvent life
Prague, 1920. A generation emerging from the First World War is determined to invent a new way of living. At its centre stands Karel Teige: critic, designer, collagist and restless organiser, whose belief in poetry brings together artists, architects, filmmakers and writers.
From the exuberance of Devětsil and Poetism to the unsettling visions of Surrealism, Jiří Kamen follows a circle that includes Toyen, Jindřich Štyrský, Vítězslav Nezval, Jaroslav Seifert and André Breton. Their manifestos and quarrels are inseparable from friendship, desire and the women whose work sustained them. But the dream of liberation collides with fascism, occupation and Stalinism.
A man of the left who refuses to submit imagination to political doctrine, Teige becomes increasingly isolated. Drawing on diaries, letters, memoirs and artworks, Kamen creates a richly human portrait of an artistic generation: funny, unruly and inventive, then forced to confront the terrible cost of its ideals.