Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age

  THIS IS A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOK

  PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS

  435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

  www.nyrb.com

  Copyright © 1964 Bohumil Hrabal

  Translation copyright © 1995 by Harcourt Brace & Company

  Introduction copyright © 2011 by Adam Thirlwell

  All rights reserved.

  First published in Czech as Taneční hodiny prostarší a pokročilé

  Translation published by special arrangement with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

  Cover photograph: Miroslav Tichy, MT Inv. no. 1-43; courtesy Foundation Tichy Ocean

  Cover design: Katy Homans

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the earlier printing as follows:

  Hrabal, Bohumil, 1914–1997.

  [Taneční hodiny pro starší a pokročilé. English]

  Dancing lessons for the advanced in age / by Bohumil Hrabal; introduction by Adam Thirlwell; translated by Michael Henry Heim.

  p.cm. — (New York Review Books classics)

  ISBN 978-1-59017-377-0 (alk. paper)

  1. Reminiscing in old age—Fiction. 2. Shoemakers—Fiction. 3. Conduct of life—Fiction. 4. Czechoslovakia—Fiction. I. Heim, Michael Henry.II. Title.

  PG5039.18.R2T313 2011

  891.8'635—dc22

  2010036715

  eISBN 978-1-59017-556-9

  v1.0

  For a complete list of books in the NYRB Classics series, visit www.nyrb.com or write to:

  Catalog Requests, NYRB, 435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014