Luboš Palata
Luboš Palata (*1967) is a journalist, poet, and an occasional visual artist. He wrote short stories and poems in the 1980s and became a journalist after November 1989. He has worked for major Czech newspapers and regularly writes for the BBC, Radio Free Europe, Deutsche Welle, and Gazeta Wyborcza. He has received several Czech and international journalism awards, including the Ferdinand Peroutka Prize, which he greatly admires, especially for its recognition of literature alongside journalism. He has published two collections of poetry and gathered material for his debut novel, Elbe, during a weeks-long literary journey along the Elbe River. This novel is the fruit of over thirty years of experience as a journalist covering Central Europe and Czech-German relations as well as his diverse studies. As he says, a fulfilled life is only a few good books away.
Elbe. The Great River
August 2024, 256 pages
Rights sold to: Poland (Uniwersytet Wrocławski)
Available material: English synopsis, English sample
A read about the grand journey you too can embark on
The Elbe is a river. The Elbe is a journey—a journey over a thousand kilometers long. A journey of dreams, a journey from Bohemia to the sea, to the ocean. The Elbe is a river of Czechs and Germans, Germans and Slavs, the West and the East. A vein connecting the Bohemian basin—Bohemia, Böhmen, Čechy—with the surrounding world by breaking through the walls of our mountains. The Elbe is a story—the story of the people around the river. More than a thousand years of stories we have lived, stories we still live today, connected with this river. Stories of grandeur, smallness, bloodshed, nobility, tragedy, sanctity, beauty, hope, despair, and dreams. The Elbe is a river of stories; this book tells those stories.
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“Elbe: The Great River, authored by journalist Luboš Palata, is enchanting. The Elbe is Elbe. Elbe is a journey. A journey over a thousand kilometers long. A dreamlike journey from Bohemia to the sea, to the ocean. Elbe is the river of the Czechs and Germans, Germans and Slavs, the West and the East. An artery connecting the Czech basin—Bohemia, Böhmen—to the world beyond, through the Czech Gate in our mountainous walls. Elbe is a story—a story of us, the people along the river.”
“He waited patiently for his first novel, Elbe. And it was worth it. It matured like fine wine. A page- turner. Luboš Palata is a skilled writer, and his gently poetically transcendental narrative in the spirit of Hrabal and Čapek flows like water, like butter spreading, like reeds swaying in the wind along the river, the countryside, the nation.”
–Tomáš Vích, Seznam.cz
