Literary Guide to Prague: Inspiring Routes for Adventurous Trips
The places described in the following ten books vary, but they share one commonality: their authors are enchanted by the cities, landscapes, and breathtaking history of this land in the heart of Europe. Supernatural, philosophical, and satirical novels from global literature can serve as unusual guides during your journeys through Prague.
Dan Brown: The Secret of All Secrets
Discover the mysterious side of Prague through the eyes of the bestselling global author Dan Brown! In his novel The Secret of All Secrets, Brown places the story deep in the heart of Prague, making the city a vital character in his narrative. Robert Langdon and Katherine Solomon wander around the Old Town Square and the winding streets of the Jewish Quarter, cross the Charles Bridge, climb up to Prague Castle and St. Vitus Cathedral, and visit the baroque library at Klementinum. Readers can also perceive the book as an alternative guide to Prague, where along with the tourist icons, hidden corners and mysterious legends also appear. Additionally, the story takes place during winter in Prague – and it’s not by chance. This sets a hidden challenge for tourists to explore our capital outside the main tourist season!
The author has a personal connection to Prague – he has visited the city seven times, first as a child. In interviews, he smiles while admitting to having tried Czech head cheese, and even though the world knows the Czech Republic mainly as a nation of beer, he personally prefers wine. He named one of his characters – Captain Janáček – after the famous Czech composer. While Brown’s novels may seem monumental, they develop gradually within his daily routine: the writer gets up at four in the morning and diligently writes every single day.
Bohumil Hrabal: The World of Automat
Although Bohumil Hrabal (1914–1997), a writer with his unique and unmistakable storytelling style, was born in Brno, much of his life is connected with Prague. His writings mainly focus on the city in Too Loud a Solitude, Tender Barbarian, Weddings in the House, Poetry Clubs, or in The World of Automat. You can trace Hrabal’s footsteps not only in old Libeň (for instance, in Na Hrázi Street, where Hrabal’s wall commemorates him), but also in his favorite pubs. The most famous of these is the U Zlatého tygra restaurant located on Husova Street in the Old Town, where he used to sit in the back room under “small antlers,” frequented by many well-known personalities, from Václav Havel and American president Bill Clinton to Alexander Dubček and Prague native Madeleine Albright.
Miloš Urban: Seven Churches
In the gothic novel Seven Churches, author Miloš Urban (*1967) captures the magical atmosphere of the city and the fascinating sacred geometry of New Town with the Přemysl and Luxembourg line. The story unfolds within a space defined by six Gothic churches, which serve not just as an attractive and mysterious backdrop but play critical roles in the novel.
Miloš Urban has won the Magnesia Litera literary award for his novel Hastrman. Prague is also the setting for Lord Mord, which takes place at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries during the demolition of the Old Town.
Zdeněk Jirotka: Saturnin
The elegant Imperial Café, St. Ludmila’s Church at Náměstí Míru, and the Legion Bridge: these are some of the places you can explore with Zdeněk Jirotka (1911–2003) and his novel Saturnin. For several generations, readers have regarded it as the best humorous book in Czech literature. This cheerful book was created in the dark times of the Protectorate, and a significant portion of it was written in the bathroom of his Prague apartment. Why? Because it had no window, so he didn’t need to worry about blackout curtains during air raids. Jirotka jokingly claimed that maybe because he worked in the bathroom, the novel has so much water.
This beloved book has been published dozens of times, repeatedly released as an audiobook, and has also appeared as a play in various theaters. In 1994, director Jiří Věrčák filmed a four-part series Saturnin, which was later edited into a feature film.
Martin Vopěnka: The Prague Golem, Rabbi Löw and My Jewish Soul
The legendary magical tale set against the backdrop of Rudolfine Prague takes on another dimension through the writing of Martin Vopěnka and the illustrations of Renáta Fučíková. In the book The Prague Golem, Rabbi Löw, and My Jewish Soul, astronomy, alchemy, and Kabbalah intertwine, accompanied by a philosophical message relevant to the present. Martin Vopěnka has authored several dozen books and has received various accolades for his work. For instance, his novel New Planet, categorized as science fiction for children and youth, was awarded the Golden Ribbon, given annually to creators of the best books for kids and youth in the Czech language.
Guillaume Apollinaire: The Prague Walker
One of the most famous poets enchanted by Prague is Guillaume Apollinaire, a pioneer of modern avant-garde poetry. He visited Prague in the early 20th century, with a bust dedicated to him located in the passage of the Archa Palace on Na Poříčí Street, not far from the former Bavaria Hotel in the area of U Rozvařilů Brewery, where he used to stay.
In his mysterious short story The Prague Walker, he depicts a magical evening stroll alongside Ahasver – the eternal Jew, wandering the world since the time of Christ. Together they traverse the winding streets of the Old Town, stop at the Old Town Square, Týn Church near the grave of the astronomer Tycho Brahe, and in the Jewish Quarter, which Apollinaire still saw in its original form before demolition.
He was particularly dazzled by the Old-New Synagogue and the Jewish Town Hall clock, which goes backward – these features actually inspired some verses in the famous poem Zone (1912):
Similar to Lazarus whom light crushes
The hands of the clock in the Jewish quarter revolve backward
And you are slowly retreating in your own life
Going up to Hradčany and listening in the evening
To how Czech songs are sung in the taverns.
If you want to follow Apollinaire’s footsteps, cross the Charles Bridge to Malá Strana and continue up to Prague Castle. In St. Vitus Cathedral, in the St. Wenceslas Chapel, the poet reportedly experienced the strongest moment of his visit – in the veins of one of the amethysts on the walls of the chapel, he glimpsed “a face with blazing mad eyes.” He believed this to be his own likeness – and to this day, poetry lovers search for the stone with the poet’s face.
Jerome Klapka Jerome: Three Men on the Road
The most recognized work of British humorist Jerome Klapka Jerome (1859–1927) includes the famous books Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) and its sequel Three Men on the Road. In this latter, he recounts how he took a cycling trip with friends through Germany at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, including a stop in what was then Austria-Hungary, specifically in Prague. The narrator and his friends, George and Harris, wandered into the Jewish ghetto, aiming to see where Jan Hus preached and the route followed by Jan Žižka with his Hussites. A quarter of a century later, in his autobiography My Life and Times, Klapka reminisced about their guide: “Years ago in Prague, I stumbled upon a rogue pretending to be a guide. He learned English in New York from someone of Scottish origin. I can honestly say I understood not a word from him.”
The English were also intrigued by several Prague defenestrations, about which the eighth chapter of the book notes: “…a significant portion of its troubles could likely have been avoided had Prague fewer grand and so enticing windows. The first of those mighty catastrophes was initiated when seven Catholic councilors were thrown from the windows of their town hall onto the pikes of the Hussites. Later, a second incident was signaled when royal governors were tossed from the old castle windows on Hradčany – that was the second Prague defenestration. Since then, many fatal problems have been resolved in Prague without violence, but since they were settled peacefully, one could assume that they were discussed in basements. Windows as arguments must have always meant an excessive temptation for every true Praguener.”
Angelo Maria Ripellino: Magical Prague
Italian slavist professor and promoter of Czech culture Angelo Maria Ripellino (1923–1978) created a compelling portrait of Prague from the post-Battle of White Mountain period to August 1968.
In a book often likened to a Arcimboldo collage, legends intertwine with reality, and you will encounter alchemists, painters, and poets, including the Golem, Švejk, and Rudolf II. You will learn to see Prague as a mystical place woven with romantic myths, a city of oddities, alchemists, and artists, all underpinned by a mysterious magical atmosphere that is not easy to forget.
Egon Erwin Kisch: The Prague Pitaval
Few knew Prague as intimately as the journalist and fiery reporter Egon Erwin Kisch (1885–1948). His most acknowledged works include The Prague Pitaval, a series of very successful articles, essays, stories, and famous court cases from Prague and Bohemia at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Kisch collected facts for The Prague Pitaval for decades, resulting in a book filled with sensational tales about various con artists, thieves, murderers, spies, and other characters from Prague’s colorful underworld. His most prominent work was first published in Berlin in 1931, with Czech readers accessing it in translation two years later.
Milan Kundera: The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Prolific writer, poet, essayist, translator, and playwright Milan Kundera (1929–2023) is the most successful author of Czech origin in the world. The novel unfolds against the backdrop of the Prague Spring of 1968, depicting the stories of Doctor Tomáš, his wife Tereza, and painter Sabina, illustrating the hopeless existence in a normalizing Czechoslovakia. The book was first published in French in 1984 in Paris, followed by its Czech release in 1985 in Canada by Sixty-Eight Publishers. Kundera’s latest book is The Festival of Insignificance, released in September 2020.
Simon Mawer: Prague Spring
British author Simon Mawer (1948–2025) is known among Czech readers for his books Mendel’s Dwarf and The Glass Room, inspired by the stories of the Tugendhat Villa in Brno and the lives of its owners. In 2018, he published the novel Prague Spring. In this story, through the eyes of two students from Oxford and other Brits, who find themselves in Prague during this tumultuous period, he captures the optimism of the year 1968 in then-Czechoslovakia, as well as its abrupt end following the August occupation.
Phillip Roth: Prague Orgies
This slim book takes place in Soviet-occupied Prague, where American novelist Nathan Zuckerman arrives to find the work of a forgotten Jewish author, while getting tangled in a series of both dramatic and comedic situations. The secret police is soon on his trail, and ultimately, he is expelled from the country.
Author Phillip Roth (1933–2018), himself a renowned American author, draws from his own experiences during visits to socialist Czechoslovakia in the 1970s, depicting the lives of Prague’s intellectuals and dissidents during the normalization period.
Vojtěch Matocha: Prašina
What if there was a neighborhood in the heart of Prague where electricity doesn’t work? No lights, no trams, no mobiles, but a set of traditional foglar-esque scenes like winding streets, cellars, backyards of tenement houses, and church spires. This is exactly what Prašina is – a mysterious corner of the city where time has stood still and thrilling stories begin. The mysterious neighborhood evokes the atmosphere of Foglar’s Stínadla, yet the author Vojtěch Matocha (*1989) skillfully anchors Prašina within the context of modern Prague. How? By mentioning nearby Prague districts and casually noting that alongside the enigmatic Hanuš Nápravník, both Franz Kafka and Karel Hynek Mácha were born here. The eerie and dark atmosphere, which pulls you right into the action, is further enhanced by illustrations by Karel Osoha. Prašina is an exciting read for children aged nine and up, but it also appeals to adults who love adventures with a touch of mystery.
The Prašina series has received several awards and nominations, including the Magnesia Litera and Golden Ribbon, quickly becoming one of the most popular titles in Czech children’s literature in recent years. If you’re looking for a tale that can pull kids away from screens and immerse them in a magical world where nothing is taken for granted, try diving into Prašina. You might discover that even without Wi-Fi and mobiles, real adventures can still happen.
Michael Chabon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
American author Michael Chabon (*1963) also sets part of his story in former Czechoslovakia. In an intriguing tale that utilizes the popular literary genre of alternative history, he won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001.
The story begins in New York in the autumn of 1939 and centers on Clay, alias Samuel Klayman, a Jewish boy from Brooklyn, and Josef Kavalier, who escapes from Prague to flee Hitler. A strong bond of friendship develops between them as they dream big: to publish a comic book and become wealthy. Despite the challenges of the time, they manage to realize their dreams.
Franz Kafka: The Trial
A classic of all classics, written by Franz Kafka (1883–1924), a Prague-born German-language Jew, has been captivating readers for decades. The hallmark of Kafka’s work was largely unknown during his lifetime, as he published only a few stories.
Only three novels – Amerika, The Trial, and The Castle – along with his short story Metamorphosis made him one of the most literarily influential authors of the 20th century. The Trial is a story about the struggles an average bureaucrat faces against an invisible power structure and suffocating bureaucracy and is intrinsically linked to Prague.
Štěpán Mareš: Comic Stories from Prague
Are you a fan of comics? As an original gift from Prague, you can find comic stories by renowned illustrator Štěpán Mareš, who is also the creator of the famous comic character Green Raoul. Stories about Franz Kafka, Albert Einstein, and the Golem titled The Mysterious Golem, The White Unicorn of Science, and Kafka’s Prague, Mother City with Claws are available at the original souvenir shop in the basement of the Old Town Hall or in an e-shop on prague.eu.
Gustav Meyrink: The Golem
German author Gustav Meyrink (1868–1932) was profoundly influenced by the atmosphere of old Prague, where he lived between 1884 and 1904. The plot of the novel The Golem revolves around the most famous symbol of Prague’s Jewish city.
Was the Golem real? Can it appear today? What did it look like? What is it really? These are questions that the main character of the story, Athanasius Pernath, grapples with. His life is filled with strange dreams, leading him to search for truth not only about his own past, plunging him into the whirlwind of occultism and Kabbalah. The book has also contributed to one of the mysteries of Golden Lane at Prague Castle, where Meyrink placed the mythical house at The Last Lantern. It is said to only be visible during certain nights, while at other times its spot is just a city wall. Upon crossing the threshold of this house, you supposedly step into another, magic literary Prague, which, according to legend, exists parallel as a “second city” within the city itself.
Jaroslav Hašek: The Good Soldier Švejk’s Adventures
The author of The Good Soldier Švejk’s Adventures during the World War, the most translated book in Czech literature, was the Czech writer, publicist, and journalist Jaroslav Hašek (1883–1923).
This frequently adapted story depicts, against the backdrop of various tales and anecdotes, and with the help of numerous caricatures, odd characters, and unusual situations, the dismal conditions prevailing in the crumbling Austro-Hungarian Empire during World War I. In Lipnice nad Sázavou, where the writer passed away, you’ll discover not just Hašek’s grave or a museum, but also an unusual monument.
Jorge Luis Borges: The Secret Miracle
The short story The Secret Miracle by Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) is set in Prague, during the period after the start of World War II. The author’s unfinished tragedy The Enemies is being captured, and preparations are made for his execution. The protagonist regrets not finishing his work and requests God for a miracle so he can work on it for another year.
The miracle indeed happens; time stands still for a year… and the rest you’ll have to read for yourself. By the way, the author lost his sight in 1955 and as a blind librarian, inspired colleague Umberto Eco for the character blind Jorge from The Name of the Rose.
Mariusz Szczygieł: Gottland
Renowned Polish reporter and investigative journalist Mariusz Szczygieł (*1966) writes about the Czech Republic as Gottland – a land where Karel Gott became a legend. He offers a fresh perspective on the modern history of the Czech nation, weaving together interesting historical facts, intriguing anecdotes, tidbits, and paradoxes.
The book narrates the icons of Czech collective consciousness and looks into phenomena of recent Czech history (the Baťa family, Lída Baarová, Jan Procházka, Marta Kubišová, Jaroslava Moserová), as well as the destinies of characters that have not yet received deeper exploration by the Czechs themselves (sculptor Otakar Švec, who designed the world’s largest statue of Stalin; Karel Fabián, a writer who chose to erase his past and replace himself Orwell-style after February 1948; Franz Kafka’s niece who refuses to talk about her famous uncle).
Umberto Eco: Prague Cemetery
If you’re fond of stories filled with drama and adventure, then the sixth novel by Italian semiologist, aesthetician, philosopher, and writer Umberto Eco (1932–2016) is just for you. This novel tracks events leading up to the creation of the Jewish plan for world domination expressed in the so-called Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a document obtained by a Russian secret service and published by monk Sergei Nilus in 1905.
The story primarily unfolds in Paris and Italy, but it also describes a secret nighttime meeting of rabbis at the Prague Jewish cemetery.
Eli Beneš: A Tiny Loss of Loneliness
The debut of Eli Beneš, released by Akropolis publishing house, received a Magnesia Litera award for Best Debut and garnered significant international acclaim. It was the very first Czech book in the twenty-year history of the prestigious Books at Berlinale program, a joint project of the Berlinale film festival and the Frankfurt Book Fair. Beneš’s novel A Tiny Loss of Loneliness is among the best books published in the Czech Republic on the theme of the Holocaust. It also adds to the long list of literary returns to Prague – this time to a city celebrating the end of war, but for many of its residents, far from being a liberation.
The story begins in May 1945. While Prague celebrates the end of World War II, a teenager named Petr is returning home from Auschwitz and a death march. He is on the brink of physical and emotional exhaustion, yet hope keeps him going: he believes he will find his parents and brother again, return to his apartment, school, and lead a normal life. However, the city he returns to is no longer the home he once knew. Jewish apartments have new inhabitants, possessions belong to new owners, and the return of survivors is an uncomfortable complication for many. Petr encounters open reluctance and hidden reproaches – as if merely surviving had become a problem. Peace eludes him even among other survivors, each carrying their own traumas. The novel raises the difficult issue of privileges in the Jewish community, the ambiguity of the roles of victims and perpetrators, and the fact that not all Czechs were heroes and not all Germans were villains. Beneš, however, does not lapse into moralizing. With ease and clear knowledge of the historical context, he reveals a world where grand histories collide with personal fates.
