The Last Thing
Leopold Lahola author Peter Sherwood translator Julia Sherwood translator
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Karolinum,Nakladatelstvi Univerzity Karlovy,Czech Republic
Publishing:4th Aug '25
£19.00
This title is due to be published on 4th August, and will be despatched as soon as possible.

An English translation of Slovak Jewish writer Leopold Lahola’s collection of short stories that face the atrocities and paradoxes of World War II.
Slovak Jewish writer Leopold Lahola was able to escape deportation to a concentration camp and fight in the resistance only to find himself forced into exile by the postwar communist regime. He emerged from obscurity during the brief thaw of the Prague Spring, when he was able to return to his homeland and thrive as a playwright and film director. It was also in 1968 that his short story collection The Last Thing appeared in Slovakia. The collection’s title proved sadly prophetic with the author suffering a fatal heart attack in January 1968, just before his 50th birthday and as his short stories finally appeared in book form.
The nine stories which make up The Last Thing range from the prewar rise of fascism and its dangers for the Jewish community through the concentration camps and the partisan fight against the Germans, concluding in the devastating awareness of all that had been lost and destroyed in the war. Lahola is a master of writing outside of conventional tropes, exploring moral ambivalences where others work within the comforts of good versus evil. He punctures the standard historical image of the partisan fighters by depicting their heroism along with their cruelty and pettiness while also showing how often bravery and madness, kindness and stupidity can coexist. Lahola has written a World War II novel whose translation will offer not only a compelling read but starkly new perspectives on the tragedy and grandeur of that momentous time in history.
"Leopold Lahola was and remains a miracle of Slovak literature. Literally! At the same time, his is the story of a writer who surpassed his countrymen so much that they temporarily forgot him. But only temporarily!" * Fedor Gál, sociologist, politician, essayist and documentarian *
ISBN: 9788024660417
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 454g
218 pages