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(1964)
Novelist, poet, translator and playwright

Although Martin Fahrner is still better-known in the world of drama, his time as a writer of prose is gradually coming, too. The novella Steiner or What We Did received an enthusiastic response from the critics as well as the community of readers. Fahrner´s style is often compared to that of Ota Pavel...

Author following in the footsteps of the traditional Czech storyteller.


Selected bibliography:

Steiner aneb Co jsme dělali (Steiner or What We Did, novella, 2001, 2002)
The author tells in retrospect the stories of several generations of his family, sketching an outline of the way Czech society has developed over the past half century. His version of history contains humour and exaggeration, as well as emotional depth.

“My father really was a football player and later worked on the railway, my grandmother was a rail switch lighter at the railway station in Lysá nad Labem and my mother worked at the department of ophthalmology where she treated some of my minor wounds and scratches from rock-climbing... I have recreated some real persons and situations in order that they fit my book better. Some of them are completely fictional, because I did not want to create a diary record and also I wanted to protect the privacy of members of my family. The main reason for making things up was the fact that I wanted to tell the stories of people who seek for the most important thing in life: its deeper meaning. My book is a tribute to everybody who does not give up this struggle.”
(Martin Fahrner about his book)

Foreign editions:
Mladinska Knjiga, Slovenia, 2005
Piper, Germany, 2006

Rights sold to:
Stigmati/Bohemia Club, Bulgaria

Review:
“As a reviewer, I should remain untouched by the emotion generated by the course of a story, but I failed in this completely when reading Fahrner’s book. His gentle storytelling and captivating bittersweet tenderness so much overwhelmed me that all I could say after I read through the last page was: Bravo. For me, the book of short stories Steiner or We Did is this year’s literary jewel.”
(for, Nové knihy)

“Steiner or What We Did is a highly readable and utterly extraordinary book. It is definitely going to be useful to remember the name of its author.”
(Ladislav Nagy, Lidové noviny)

“Only few times in my life have I felt such joy at the simple art of an uncomplicated literary capturing of our hard stagger through the course of life. What is more – I have not encountered such a gentle storyteller in a very long time.”
(Michal Schindler, Tvar)


Pošetilost doktora vinnetouologie [The Folly of the Doctor of Winnetouology]
(novella, 2004)
The protagonists of The Folly of the Doctor of Winnetouology are three fellow students. Their friendship is due to a shared combination of tastes and qualities which include a liking for practical jokes, a directness and guilelessness, loyalty to one another and an urge scale the heights of life. But though age overtakes them and fate employs various means by which to squeeze them, their ability to marvel withstands the ravages of time.
This book about friendship, about the overcoming of the weightier problems life serves up, about Good and Evil, has something of the fairy tale about it.

Reviews:
"Fahrner has the rare ability to be simple without being superficial, to be powerful without the need to rely on an expressive vocabulary, to take the optimistic view in a fashion which convinces. [...] Among Fahrner's strengths are the scenes in which he achieves an almost filmic emphasis. He is a writer who builds his tale and moves forward his plot in short chapters and with maximum economy. And most precious of all: as we read his book we are all the time aware that it is possible to exist in the space between the small-town idyll and the 'wilder' fictions of today, that a gaze seemingly naive and full of hope can succeed in capturing 'what is important'
in life."
(Ondřej Horák, Lidové noviny)

"Petr Šabach? Ota Pavel? Perhaps even Robert Fulghum? It doesn't take much to find hints of all three in Martin Fahrner's latest, The Folly of the Doctor of Winnetouology. In Steiner or What We Did Fahrner showed us once before how interesting a work about the fortunes of a Czech family at the end of the 20th century can be, a work which is entirely unexperimental, traditional, and sedately told.
The writer's approach to the story of three friends from a teacher-training school is similar, with a reliable narrator and a hint of nostalgia, a benign philosophy and a rather unexpected, and for that the more welcome, slice of humour.
[...] At a fundamental level this writer's view of the world does not change; his heroes fight for a little private happiness to add to the condition they demand of themselves – that they should remain decent people. And it is this, of course, which leads them into situations they find difficult to deal with. They have the good fortune to know that if all that you fear comes to pass, 'in place of the fear there appears an unknown, inexplicable feeling of freedom which fills you with joy'. Fahrner's practised hand scatters throughout the text such examples of Buddhist-like wisdom, on occasions using them to form the uninsistent centrepiece of a chapter."
(Stanislav Dvořák, novinky.cz)

"Once opened, this book will refuse to grant the reader safe exit from its world of smiles and melancholy. Fahrner's tender, cruel storytelling world is well worth a visit."
(Tomáš Sedláček, Czech Radio 3-Vltava)

"To visit the doctor with a gash which apart from blood contains sardines in oil and penicillin for use on calves is no everyday occurrence. To his great credit Martin Fahrner is able to describe as if spontaneously such bizarre events so as to make them convincing. But do not be misled, The Folly of the Doctor of Winnetouology is no freely expressed trail of strange happenings. It is founded on a powerful story, the heroes of which are three friends from student days. Descriptions of how life grinds a person down and robs him of his ideals are hardy anything new, but with Fahrner an impression of banality and feelings of boredom never encroach."
(Patricia Drati, Elle)

"The heroes share a combination of tastes and qualities which include a liking for practical jokes, a directness and guilelessness, sticking to one´s principles and the urge scale the heights of life. But though age overtakes them and fate employs various means by which to squeeze them, their ability to marvel withstands the ravages of time."
(Knižní tipy [Good book tips], iDNES.cz)

"This work of Fahrner's is not a series of funny stories about classmates at a teacher-training institute. It may be that good works are not valued, and they may even produce bad results; friendship may change into hate or indifference and an unwillingness to listen. Within us all is a little piece of Winnetou, hovering on the edge of honour and integrity, though the daily quest for the lost totem has little in common with the treasure of the Silver Lake."
(výběr-knihy [Books Selection], Salon)

Notes:
Sample translations into various languages are available from Petrov Publishers upon request; English and German translations are available on these web pages..



Steiner aneb Co jsme dělali / Steiner or: What We Did (first edition)


Steiner aneb Co jsme dělali / Steiner or: What We Did (second edition)


Pošetilost doktora vinnetouologie / The Folly of the Doctor of Winnetouology