Book Presentation: Paramisa – Fairytales and Tales of Romany Storytellers from the Former Czechoslovakia

Until a few decades ago, tales were handed down among the Roma in the former Czechoslovakia. They were recounted mainly by men, and the audience was made up chiefly of adults, not children. Before storytelling sessions were overtaken by television and other forms of entertainment, the Romani artist Milena Hübschmannová (1933–2005) recorded hundreds of such stories on tape. She published some of them herself in the 1973 book Romské pohádky (Romani Fairy Tales), while others, recorded after the publication of the first collection, have only now been published in Czech. The launch of the book Paramisa. Pohádky a příběhy romských vypravěčů z bývalého Československa (Paramisa: Fairytales and Tales of Romany Storytellers from the Former Czechoslovakia) will be accompanied by a presentation of illustrations by Ladislava Gažiová and readings by a number of Romani authors from their own adaptations of folk tales. The book will be “christened” by Tereza Hrabovská, daughter of Milena Hübschmann, and Josef Goroľ, the son of one of the storytellers.