'Our very best writer today' Milan Kundera
Ditie is a pint-sized hotel waiter with big dreams.
Between pocketing stolen change from unsuspecting customers and reminiscing on nights spent at the local brothel, he fantasises about his immense - and imagined - riches.
Then, ludicrously, Dities dreams start to become reality.
Yet while his chaotic adventures lead him to ever more glamorous hotels, beyond the sparkling dining halls, the forces of twentieth-century European history march on.
A whirlwind of comic genius, a gut-punch of narrative power, this is the story of one small mans rise and fall or fall and rise against the shadowy backdrop of Europes darkest days.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ADAM THIRLWELL
An extraordinary and subtly tragicomic novel New York Times
Hrabal bounces and floats... with a gusting humour and a hushed tenderness of detail Julian Barnes
A joyful, picaresque story, which begins with Baron Munchausen-like adventures and ends in tears and solitude. James Wood