Abstrakt

The present article, published on the occasion of the centenary of the Czech writer Josef Škvorecký (1924–2012), looks at his work through the prism of artistic representation of the Shoah and Jewish characters. Most naturally, it focuses on the composed cycle of short stories Sedmiramenný svícen (1964; The Seven-Armed Candlestick), in which the Jewish theme is signalled by the title. Two Jewish women survivors of the Shoah appear in the novel Lvíče (1969; Lioness), and – especially in comparison with Arnošt Lustig’s prose – in completely different, more active roles. The other characters of Jewish origin in Škvorecký‘s other prose works are no longer significant and appear rather in a secondary role.