Velvet & Steam

When Jan Novák went into exile with his parents in the second half of the 1960s, he was sixteen years old. He made a brief visit to Czechoslovakia at the end of the 1970s, from which he was soon expelled – and then not again until December 1989, and for just three days at that. However, those three days provided enough material for an entire book. In the introduction to Velvet and Steam, the author himself says: “There are two kinds of writing. The first draws on experience in the service of imagination, and this is called fiction. The second draws on experience in the service of memory, and this is called non-fiction. As I wrote this book, I found courage by telling myself that memory is, in its own way, a kind of imagination.” Memory and imagination truly play an equal part in his text; Novák's account of three days steeped in historical events, cigarette smoke, and eager anticipation of future developments is characterised by everything we have come to expect from him: here too, we find a masterful blend of lofty reflections and precise descriptions of everyday banality, pub stories with a deeper meaning, and an uncompromising yet empathetic portrayal of a human menagerie.