Vzájemná korespondence Jana Čepa a Bohumila Nováka
The Correspondence Between Jan Čep and Bohumil Novák

Summary/Abstract: This selected correspondence of Jan Čep and Bohumil Novák from 1940 through 1945 includes the editiorial communication between Čep, a Catholic author, and the literary critic and writer Bohumil Novák, who had been working for the František Borový Press since 1939. The selected correspondence is an important source for researching the genesis of Čep’s book Polní tráva [Field Grass], which the author began preparing for publication in 1943 (it was ultimately released after the war in 1946). However, the letters also provide important testimony about how literary life worked under German occupation (1939–1945), about the position of writers at that time, and about the effect of censorship during the occupation. The shorter study that precedes the selected correspondence does its best to contextualize the editing letters in the literary-critical and publishing life of that time, as well as to illuminate why Čep, in the course of just a few years (1938–1945), changed publishers three times (Melantrich until 1938, Vyšehrad from 1940 to 1943, František Borový from 1943 to 1945, and back to Vyšehrad after the war). The author’s creative crisis and the growing repression from the occupying regime were the reasons.

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