I Served The King Of England (1971)

Ditie is a pint-sized hotel waiter with big dreams, and he narrates his rise through ever grander Czech hotels in long, giddy, run-on sentences that feel like a story spun at a bar. The early chapters are pure tall-tale comedy, full of eccentric guests, outrageous banquets and a headwaiter whose claim to fame is having served the King of England. Twentieth-century history keeps marching in, though, and the laughter darkens as Ditie's ambitions collide with occupation and communism. Hrabal finished it in 1971 but it circulated in typescript for years before proper publication. Paul Wilson's translation catches the breathless, chatty rhythm that makes the book so easy to keep reading.