who was Jaroslav Seifert and did he deserve the Noble Prize in Literature?
When he won the award in 1984, Seifert was largely unknown outside of Czechoslovakia, but within his native country his poetry was immensely popular (if not always officially sanctioned) and he was considered (in [his editor and translator] George Gibian’s words) the country’s unofficial national poet. This volume goes far toward answering these two questions. Jaroslav Seifert (1901–1986) was born into a working…
