Twisted Spoon Press has announced the release of Ladislav Klíma’s novella Glorious Nemesis. The publisher describes the book as “a balladic ghost story that explores the metaphysics of love and death, crime and reincarnation,” set in the mountainous Tyrol. The novella was translated from the Czech by Marek Tomin. Twisted Spoon previously published Klíma’s novel The Sufferings of Prince Sternenhoch. These are the first works by Klíma to be translated into English.
Although not as well-known internationally as his Polish contemporary Stanisław Przybyszewski, Klíma’s writing is extremely influential among Czechs, where it has a cult status unique among the country’s writers. (Another reason for the Pole’s greater renown in the English-speaking world is that fact that he was championed by William Burroughs. Although both are extremely eccentric, Klíma’s brand of bohemianism was more ascetic, while Przybyszewski leaned towards wine and women.)
Klíma did not live to see his fiction published and destroyed many of his manuscripts himself. The Sufferings of Prince Sternenhoch was published to great scandal a few weeks after his death in 1928 while Glorious Nemesis came out in 1932.
Update: Read the review of Glorious Nemesis here.
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