Abstract
Egon Hostovsky's life represents one of the most dramatic biographies in Czech literature. The fate and the works of the writer vividly reflect all the tragic events in Czech history during the XX century.
For many years he was forced to live in exile, though he was closely connected with his homeland and wrote only in the Czech language. All this influenced the way he was perceived by Czech and foreign literary scholars, critics and readers.
From 1948 until the middle of the 60s and later from 1969 to 1989, he belonged to the proscribed writers who were not published in Czechoslovakia. František Kautman considers Hostovský to be one of the most important Czech writers of world value.
He made a lot of effort to safe Hostovský's place both in the history of Czech and European literature, and in the hearts of contemporary readers. Kautman's monograph Polarity of Our Century in Works of Eon Hostovský, written in 1973 and published first in samizdat was officially published in 1993.
It is the last part of the triptych (Dostoevsky - Kafka - Hostovský), originally not conceived by the author. The monograph became a bridge connecting the pre-war perception of Hostovský with his perception after November 1989.
It fills "white spaces" in the biography and work of the writer, and analyses and interprets his poetics. The author of this article highlights some aspects of Kautman's approach to the creativity of Hostovský and determines the place of Kautman's interpretation in the context of the Czech reception of this outstanding writer.