Prague Triptych

Structured as a winged altarpiece, Prague Triptych is written in Urzidil’s characteristic blend of fact, fiction, and memoir to create a mosaic of his native city. The centerpiece is the novella-length “Weissenstein Karl,” a Svejk-like palavering denizen of Café Arco who sits and converses with Franz Werfel, Max Brod, Franz Kafka, Ernst Pollak (and his wife-to-be Milena Jesenská) and all the other writers known as the Prague Circle, many of whom also make cameos in other parts of the book.

Through the eyes of his subjects, Urzidil takes us from Prague’s earliest history and lore through fin-de-siècle ferment and the uneasy cohabitation between Czechs, Germans, and Jews over the final decades of Habsburg rule, and ultimately to the immediate period following WWI and the establishment of an independent Czechoslovakia. The journey is capped with a final, dreamlike farewell to his city as the iron curtain descends like a theater curtain to signal the end of the performance and the darkening of the stage that had been graced by those he once knew.