Alphonse Allais: The Red Hussar's Wasted Night and Other Stories.

Listen to a selection of stories by the French cabaret artist and writer, master of absurd ideas and concise, economical style, performed by leading Czech performers. The remarkable texts of Alphonse Allais (1854-1905) undoubtedly belong to the golden fund of French humorous literature. A native of the picturesque Normandy port town of Honfleur, which was popular with the Impressionists, he originally chose to study chemistry. However, he did not fulfil his family's hopes that he would one day follow in his father's footsteps and become a pharmacist. Luckily! In Paris, he became a member of the Montmartre bohemians and his studies were over. But he began to write, and very diligently, so that today his work numbers hundreds of anecdotes, lines, short stories, sketches, grotesques, novel and other texts. "He is the most sincere, profound, subtle, and learned humorist of his time, and not only of his time," humorist Sacha Guitry complimented him.