Stories from the Scab Quarter

The texts published in this book are the first part of a project to publish the complete literary works of the Jewish, Czech-writing author František R. Kraus (1903–1967). The short stories in this volume (some of which are autobiographical) highlight his distinctive depiction of “Prague characters” and his extraordinary sensitivity to the realities of life. A picture of Prague emerges before us that is both unusual (thanks to the art of looking from unexpected angles) and realistic (it is the old, forgotten, yet real Prague). Some of the stories concern personalities he knew (Franz Kafka, Egon Erwin Kisch) or tales from times past (Mozart, Casanova), while others are set during the Munich Agreement and the Protectorate, and partly in the Holocaust period, which he himself experienced (Terezín, Auschwitz) and which will be the subject of the next short story collection.

Until now, only a few of the author's stories included here have been published, at least in magazines (sometimes distorted by the censor), while others have remained only in typescript. This is the first time these short stories have been published in book form.

This collection of short stories by František R. Kraus is undoubtedly a literary discovery. An unexpected discovery, because within the now well-researched literary “Prague Circle” of interwar Jewish, German, and Czech writers, a new, powerful voice has suddenly appeared for the reader. We are introduced to a writer with an exceptionally rich language, with uniquely conceived themes, with faithfully drawn characters and descriptions of the genius loci of Prague – both the sublime and the poor, crumbling city. A writer who describes life in the alleys of the recently cleared Prague ghetto and in the streets and avenues after the clearance; a writer who observes the fates of the “little people” as well as Prague’s bohemians; a writer who himself lived this life and was able to describe it authentically, with fascination, and yet without sentimentality.

Kraus's literary student and long-time friend Arnošt Lustig wrote about him, among other things:

“František Robert Kraus, who is not in the literary dictionary. A man of the same grain as Jack London, Albert Londres, and Curzio Malaparte and Egon Erwin Kisch and Isaak Babel or Adolf Rudnicki. One of my prematurely deceased friends.”

The book is accompanied by an afterword by František Cinger, a glossary, and brief editorial notes. It has been sensitively illustrated by a family friend, the painter Ivan Bukovský.