The Arsonist - Egon Hostovsky

The Arsonist by Egon Hostovsky, translated by Christopher Morris / 180-page paperback published in 2025 by Twisted Spoon / ISBN 9788088628101

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Awarded the Czechoslovak State Prize for Literature in 1936, The Arsonist explores the world of youth against the backdrop of a small eastern Bohemian border town being menaced by an invisible firebug. Time and fire, their ability to reshape and destroy, are central. Encoded in echo, wind, and smoke ― in the gesture and in the whisper ― the true nature of events is too intangible and fleeting, too pregnant with the unknown, to provide any genuine certainty, and this is the real source of the townsfolk's terror. Their misguided attempts to identify the elusive arsonist ultimately reveal the emptiness and inflexibility of their own lives. One of the most distinctive voices in 20th-century Czech letters, Hostovský’s mix of mysticism, irony, and wit, all leavened by the influence of Expressionism on his early work, results in a richly textured narrative amid an atmosphere of growing peril that serves as a harbinger of the catastrophe to come. This is the first English translation.

"The novel's surface mystery story serves mostly as a mirror and backdrop for the psychological action that is its theme and emotional core. By the book's close, fire, darkness, suspicion and secrecy have twisted into a network of associations that illuminate both Kamil's troubled family and the entire town." – The Prague Post

Egon Hostovský (1908-73) was one of the most distinctive voices in 20th-century Czech literature. He was born to a Jewish family in the northeastern Bohemian town of Hronov. Throughout the 1930s he served as editor in the Prague publishing house Melantrich while publishing a number of novels during this period. These were translated at the time into other European languages and established Hostovský as one of the leading Czech writers of his generation. Emigrating to the US in 1950, he worked as a Czech lanaguate teacher and editor for Radio Free Europe. He died in Montclair, New Jersey.