It took me a long time to grasp the shadowy nature of the literary world. The ins and outs of applying for funding, usually tied to another form of funding, like a grant to a foreign publisher or a translator. Basically, without support from the state, there would be no Czech books published abroad. And even when they are published, thanks to that support, they’re usually just printed, that’s it. The book sits around in some warehouse and no one even knows it exists. Then, after six months or so, I get an email, say, from the Slovenian publishing house Mladinska knjiga, with an official statement informing me of the sale of four copies of my novel Kratka zgodovina Gibanja . My email thanking them for doing a truly excellent job of hiding my books typically goes unanswered. In Poland, fortunately, things are different.…