Bohumil Hrabal (1914 – 1997)

Bohumil Hrabal was a Czech writer, best known for his novella turned Oscar winning foreign flick Closely Observed Trains and his novel turned movie I Served the King of England; both works of fiction were adapted into film by the Czech director Jirí Menzel. Bohumil Hrabal was born in Brno, but studied in Prague at Charles University where he received a degree in Law and went on living in Prague from the 1940s on with a lot of cats. He often frequented the Golden Tiger; a pub in the Old Town district of Prague, where he would sit with fellow drinkers and tell wonderfully crafted stories to. Several of Hrabal’s works were not published until after the fall of Communism; works such as I Served the King of England and The Little Town Where Time Stood Still. Hrabal died due to falling from a 5th floor window of the Bulovka Hospital; he was trying to feed the pigeons. It is interesting to note that suicides by jumping from 5th floor buildings were often mentioned in his books.