Vojtěch Rakous

Born in Velký Brázdim, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Czech Republic), Adalbert Östreicher adopted the Czech pseudonym Vojtěch Rakous for his writing career. After entering a haberdashery apprenticeship in Prague at age thirteen, Rakous became a businessman. He published his first short stories in 1897 to little critical acclaim, and not until 1910 did his collection of stories, titled Vojkovičtí a přespolní (The People of Vojkovice and Its Environs) win attention, largely among Bohemian Jewish readers. Initially a proponent of Jewish assimilation into Czech civic life, Rakous became more critical of the Czech assimilationist movement following World War I, a change reflected in his stories. Much of his work remains serialized in periodicals and has not been collected into volumes.