Links:

    -BOOK SITE: The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War (zenny.com)
    -WIKIPEDIA: Jaroslav Hašek
    -ENTRY: Jaroslav Hašek (1883-1923) (Books and Writers)
    -FILMOGRAPHY: Jaroslav Hašek (IMDB)
    -WIKIPEDIA: The Good Soldier Švejk
    -TRIBUTE SITE: The Good Soldier Švejk Central: The Grand Station for all trains of thought about Švejk...
    -TRIBUTE SITE: The Good Soldier Švejk
    -Tales from Jaroslav: a translation project
    -ENTRY: Jaroslav Hašek (GoodReads)
    -ENTRY: Jaroslav Hašek Czech writer (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
    -ENTRY: The Good Soldier Schweik work by Hašek (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
    -ENTRY: The Good Soldier Švejk (novel) (Maciej Górny, International Encyclopedia of the First World War)
    -ENTRY: Jaroslav Hašek (The Short Story Project)
    -ENTRY: Jaroslav Hašek (The Greatest Books)
    -INDEX: Jaroslav Hasek (A Common Reader)
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    -VIDEO ARCHIVE: jaroslav hašek (YouTube)
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    -ETEXT: The Good Soldier Švejk (zenny.com)
    -EXCERPT: Chapter One: GOOD SOLDIER ŠVEJK ACTS TO INTERVENE IN THE WORLD WAR (The Good Soldier Švejk, translated by Mike Joyce and Zenny Sadlon)
    -STORY: How I Met the Author of My Obituary by Jaroslav Hašek (Short Story Project)
    -STORY: A Legitimate Business — Jaroslav Hašek (tr. Dustin Stalnaker) (minor literatures)
    -ETEXT: The Good Soldier Schweik (translated by Paul Selver)
    -INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW ENGLISH EDITION
    -ETEXT: The Good Soldier Švejk and his fortunes in the world war By Jaroslav Hašek (libcom)
    -AUDIO EXCERPT: The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hasek (Audiobook preview, translated by Cecil Parrott)
    -ETEXT: A Rendezvous with the Censor: Notes and a Translation of Jaroslav Hašek (Meghan Forbes, Michigan Quarterly Review)
    -STORY: How I Met the Author of My Obituary (Jaroslav Hašek, Short Story Project)
    -AUDIO BOOK: The Good Soldier Schweik
    -OPERA: Robert Frank Kurka: The Good Soldier Schweik (1956-57)
    -RADIO PLAY: The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hasek (BBC4)
    -STORY: A Legitimate Business — Jaroslav Hašek (tr. Dustin Stalnaker, minor lits)
    -STORY: A very involved story (Jaroslav Hašek, Socialist Stories)
    -PODCAST: A SAPIENS READING: THE ADVENTURES OF THE GOOD SOLDIER SVEJK IN THE GREAT WAR (Sapiens Sapiens, Jul 20, 2025)
    -PROFILE: CAN THIS BOOK BE SAVED? (Zak Mucha, Chicago Reader)
    -ESSAY: The Good Soldier Svejk - a literary character, a legend (Jan Velinger, 04/02/2003, Radio Prague International)
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    -ESSAY: Why Every Progressive Should Read The Good Soldier Švejk: Paul Goldberg on How to Stay Sane in a World Besieged by Idiocy (Paul Goldberg, March 9, 2018, LitHub)
    -ESSAY: The Translator’s Dilemma: Thinking Versus Doing? (Lawrence Venuti, 5/07/25, Public Books)

What passes for translation commentary today can be pretty dismal—i.e., of questionable value as well as depressing, particularly if translation is your métier. Reviews, perhaps the most egregious example, make minimal acknowledgment of a translator’s intervention, even of their existence. Worse, when reviewers do comment on a translator’s work, their notion of translation is so simplistic as to be demoralizing.

Take the New Yorker’s 2020 review of Guido Morselli’s novel Dissipatio H.G., translated from Italian by Frederika Randall. The reviewer understands translation as seamless reproduction: “Randall … manages to get across, in English, the bleakness of Morselli’s restraint.” The translator is praised, clearly, but “the bleakness of Morselli’s restraint” isn’t exactly the Italian novel. The phrase evidently describes a meaning contained in the Italian, possibly linked to the author’s style, yet it is so abstract, not grounded on any linguistic or textual features, that it is obviously the reviewer’s interpretation. Hence the praise is self-congratulatory: the translator’s work is esteemed, but only insofar as it agrees with the reviewer’s reading (whether of the Italian text or the English version isn’t indicated). Translation is imagined as mechanical transfer, so transparent as to be invisible, not particularly resourceful or creative, certainly not an interpretive act in its own right.

    -REVIEW ESSAY: The Treachery of Translation: Three recent novels explore the idea of translators as traitors to themselves. (Irina Dumitrescu, NOVEMBER 27, 2024, The Dial)
    -ESSAY: Jaroslav Hašek and his novel “The Good Soldier Svejk” (Tracy A. Burns, Private Prague Guide)
    -ESSAY: The Good Soldier Svejk: Or How to Stay Sane in an Insane World (Wealden Wordsmith)
    -LECTURE: Ian Johnston On Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk (Ian Johnston, Malaspina University-College, Nanaimo, BC)
    -ESSAY: Thus Spake Schweik: This essay was written in Prague on the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Jaroslav Hasek, author of The Good Soldier Schweik. One of Czechoslovakia’s most prominent writers, Vaculik is forbidden to publish in his own country. (Ludvik Vaculik, July 21, 1983, NY Review of Books)
    -ESSAY: From Oslo to Omsk and beyond: a Norwegian in search of Švejk (Jomar Hønsi, 12/08/12, Radio Prague International)
    -ESSAY: The Good Writer Hašek.: Stephen Wade looks at the work of Jaroslav Hašek, whose first assembling of the Švejk stories reaches its centenary in February 2021. (Stephen Wadwe, Fortnightly Review)
    -ESSAY: The Czech Wager (Milan Kundera, January 22, 1981, NYRB)
    -ESSAY: The Laughter and Glory of Jaroslav Hašek (UNESCO, 01.12.2021)
    -ESSAY: Jaroslav Hašek: The Improbable Titan of Czech Literature (Vít Pohanka, Czech Leaders)
    -ESSAY: Jaroslav Hašek: not just The Good Soldier Švejk (David Vaughn, 09/15/2012, Radio Prague International)
    -ESSAY: The world renowned writer and ‘folk hero’ Jaroslav Hašek (Collin O’Connor, 04/26/2011, Radio Prague International)
    -ESSAY: Jaroslav Hašek: A Satirical Genius Who Ridiculed War and Bureaucracy: Honoring the Satirists and Thinkers Who Altered Our Perspectives #61 (Conrad T Hannon, Jan 24, 2025, The Cogitating Ceviche)
    -THESIS: Man Is Indestructible: Legend and Legitimacy in the Worlds of Jaroslav Hašek (Abigail Weil, 2019, Harvard University)
    -ESSAY: Jaroslav Hašek (Socialist Stories)
    -ESSAY: THE BUGULMA TALES (Abigail Weil, Spring 2021, The Slavic and East European Journal)
    -REVIEW: of Jaroslav Hašek: A Study of Švejk and the Short Stories. By Cecil Parrot (William E. Harkins, 27 January 2017, Slavic Review)
    -CHAPTER: Survival of the Unfittest on the Eastern Front: The Good Soldier Švejk (Václav Paris, January 2021, Evolutions of Modernist Epic)
    -ESSAY: Beyond Švejk: Jaroslav Hašek’s serious comedic tales (Anthony Hennen, 9/19/23, Apofenie)
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    -STUDY GUIDE: The Good Soldier Svejk (Super Summary)
    -STUDY GUIDE: The Good Soldier Švejk: Analysis of Major Characters (EBSCO)
    -STUDY GUIDE: The Good Soldier Švejk (Books and Boots)
    -STUDY GUIDE: The Good Soldier Švejk (TV Tropes)
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    -REVIEW ESSAY: Meet the Good Soldier Švejk, Patron Saint of Malingerers and Saboteurs: A 1920s-era novel sheds light on Eastern European anti-authoritarianism. (Will Collins, October 2018, reason)
    -REVIEW ESSAY: Great Books: Jaroslav Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk: Hailed as one of the first anti-war novels, Hašek’s trailblazing book still packs a punch and raises a smile more than a century after publication. (Malcolm Forbes, 3/03/23, Englesberg Ideas)
    -REVIEW: of The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War, Book One (BookLife)
    -AUDIO REVIEW: of The Good Soldier Švejk (John H. Lienhard, Engines of Our Ingenuity)
    -REVIEW: of “The Good Soldier Švejk” (Anchi Hoh, 3/07/18, Library of Congress)
    -REVIEW: of The Good Soldier Švejk (Man of La Book)
    -REVIEW: of The Good Soldier Švejk (1stReadingsBlog)
    -REVIEW: Jaroslav Hašek – The Good Soldier Švejk; part I, chapters 1-6 (Austin, January 18, 2012, Figurative Ink)
    -REVIEW: of The Good Soldier Švejk and his fortunes in the World War (Pausali Guha, TheDaak Review)
    -REVIEW: of The Good Soldier Švejk (Europeenses)
    -REVIEW: of Good Soldier Švejk (Keith, The Dish)
    -REVIEW: The Czech Books You Must Read3) The Good Soldier Švejk: Jaroslav Hašek’s comic masterpiece (Radio Prague International, 02/19/2020)
    -REVIEW: of Good Soldier Švejk (Books and Chocolate)
    -REVIEW: of
    -REVIEW: of Behind the Lines: Bugulma and Other Tales by Jaroslav Hašek Translation by Mark Corner (Dwight, A Common Reader)
    -REVIEW: of
    -REVIEW: Told by an Idiot: On Jaroslav Hašek’s “The Man Without a Transit Pass”: Jaroslav Hašek, transl. Dustin Stalnaker | The Man Without a Transit Pass (Robert Rubsam·September 21, 2023, Cleveland Review of Books)
    -REVIEW: of
    -REVIEW: of