The Good Soldier Svejk and His Fortunes in the World War
Author(s): Jaroslav Hasek

Discover “perhaps the funniest novel ever written” (The Guardian), nowbeautifully reissued

The classic comic novel of the First World War. The New YorkerAliterary masterpiece. New York Review of BooksOne of the greatest works of 20th century literature.Boston Globe

Jaroslav Hasek’s The Good Soldier Svejk follows the adventures of Josef Svejk, a boisterous and sometimes bumbling (or brilliantly subversive?) Czech soldier, as he navigates the trials of World War I. Thrust into the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s army in 1914, Svejk, “one of the great characters of 20th century literature” (New Republic), embarks on a wild trip through war-ravaged Europe as he fakes illnesses, is captured by his own men, and takes on various quixotic quests to avoid arriving at the front lines, always with a bizarreand often hilariousanecdote at the ready. Predating countercultural American classics like Catch-22 by a generation, The Good Soldier Svejk was the first great antiwar satire, and still one of the finest ever written.

Review(s):
Without Svejk, Joseph Heller has said, there would have been no Catch-22.
One of the greatest works of 20th century literature.
Brilliant. … Perhaps the funniest novel ever written.
Aliterary masterpiece.
Hasek was a comic genius.
Rich and ranging, endlessly inventive. … The predicaments of Svejk in an absurd world still continue. And the laughter echoes.
[Svejk] is one of the great characters of 20th-century literature. … [Hasek] captures the flavor of life in early-century Prague. … Haseks honesty, clarity of detail, and pawky restraint have made The Good Soldier Svejk a near classic.
All the good adjectives apply to [this novel]: robust, bawdy, sly, hugely comic and astonishingly inventive; it is also singularly undemanding on its readers. … A very funny novel and a wise one.
Anyone in power, including the president would benefit from Jaroslav Haseks The Good Soldier Svejk. … First because it would make them laugh, and then because it is the best antiwar novel I know.
Continues to have an astonishing afterlife. … Commonly cited as an ancestor of Joseph Hellers Catch-22… [its] continued resonance suggests how deep a nerve Hasek touched. His comic hero highlights the illogic of war so brilliantly that Svejks character has been absorbed into Western culture.

ISBN:9780062835444