{"product_id":"all-my-cats-9780811228954","title":"All My Cats","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn the autumn of 1965, flush with the unexpected success of his first published books, the Czech author Bohumil Hrabal bought a cottage in Kersko. From then until his death in 1997, he divided his time between Prague and his country retreat, where he wrote and tended to a community of feral cats. Over the years, his relationship to cats grew deeper and more complex, becoming a measure of the pressures, both private and public, that impinged on his life as a writer.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eAll My Cats\u003c\/em\u003e, written in 1983 after a serious car accident, is a confessional memoir, the chronicle of an author who becomes overwhelmed. As he is driven to the brink of madness by the dilemmas created by his indulgent love for the animals, there are episodes of intense brutality as he controls the feline population. Yet in the end, All My Cats is a book about Hrabal's relationship to nature, about the unlikely sources of redemption that come to him unbidden, like a gift from the cosmos--and about love.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eHrabal, Bohumil:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003cstrong\u003eBohumil Hrabal\u003c\/strong\u003e (1914-1997) was born in Moravia. He is the author of such classics as \u003cem\u003eClosely Watched Trains\u003c\/em\u003e (made into an Academy-Award winning film by Jiri Menzel), \u003cem\u003eThe Death of Mr. Baltisberger\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eI Served the King of England\u003c\/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003eToo Loud a Solitude\u003c\/em\u003e. He fell to his death from the fifth floor of a Prague hospital, apparently trying to feed the pigeons.\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWilson, Paul:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003cstrong\u003ePaul Wilson\u003c\/strong\u003e lives in Canada and has translated works by Vaclav Haval, Bohumil Hrabal, Ivan Kilma, and Josef Skvorecky.","brand":"New Directions Publishing Corporation","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50641406263570,"sku":"9780811228954","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_273b58c1-4c3e-4fa1-a62a-8bddb168f487.jpg?v=1733014949","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/all-my-cats-9780811228954","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}