The Red Commissar: Including Further Adventures of the Good Soldier Svejk and Other Stories

"Sir Cecil Parrot, the widely acclaimed translator of Svejk, has gathered together a collection of Hasek's best stories and sketches to stand--for the first time--beside the great novel. Here, once again, in five stories, is Hasek's immortal soldier who has endeared himself to readers the world over: Svejk, the good-hearted conscript, enmeshed in red tape, who does everything wrong and is still more than a match for the officers who have to deal with him. Here too are stories that confirm Hasek's reputation as a brilliant satirist; delightfully funny stories of irrational bureaucracy in an age of world war, revolution, and Bolshevism; and nostalgically mellow stories of the everyday comedy of life in the old, ramshackle Austro-Hungarian Empire--the irreverent humour, fears, hopes and escapades. Readers will be happy to discover that in The Red Commisar Hasek's originality and wit live on beside new and unexpected facets of his craft."

Cecil Parrott, translator, biographer and unrivalled authority on Jaroslav Hasek (1883-1923), describes him succinctly: 'Truant, rebel, vagabond, anarchist, play-actor, practical joker, bohemian (and Bohemian), alcoholic, traitor to the Czech legion, Bolshevik and bigamist.' He was also a satirical writer of genius, best known for The Good Soldier Svejk, but, as The Red Commissar (reissued in Faber Finds) reveals, dazzling in other formats as well: feuilletons, sketches, short stories and satirical cameos. Sir Cecil Parrott (1909-1984), diplomat, translator, writer and scholar, is best known for his definitive translation of Jaroslav Hasek's The Good Soldier Svejk. He also wrote two autobiographical volumes, The Tightrope and The Serpent and the Nightingale as well as his biography of Jaroslav Hasek, The Bad Bohemian (reissued in Faber Finds as is his translation of some of Hasek's short stories, The Red Commissar)). His diplomatic career culminated with his posting to Prague where he was the British Ambassador from 1960 to 1966. On retiring from the Foreign Office, he became first Professor of Russian and Soviet Studies and later Professor of Central and South-Eastern European Studies and Director of the Comenius Centre at the University of Lancaster.