This parable of censorship and the modern state centers on Hanta, a trash collector whose habit of salvaging and reading discarded books has brought him both the richness of the classics and the ridicule of his boss Hanta rescues books from the jaws of his compacting press and carries them home. Hrabal, whom Milan Kundera calls our very best writer today, celebrates the power and the indestructibility of the written word. Translated by Michael Henry Heim.
