A Brief History of Living Forever

'Ambitious, exciting . . . touches of Don DeLillo' Daily Telegraph

'A Kurt Vonnegut-like satirical touch' New York Times

'Inventive and heartfelt . . . packs a walloping punch' Esquire

When Adela discovers she has a terminal illness, her thoughts turn to Tereza, the child she gave up at birth. Leaving behind her family in their native Czech village, Adela flies to the United States to find her long-lost daughter before it is too late.

Raised in America and living in a fractured New York City, Tereza is working for two suspicious biotech moguls hellbent on immortality. But before Tereza can imagine a cure for Adela, her mother dies and her body disappears.

Narrated by Adela's restless spirit, the novel blends an immigrant mother's heart-breaking journey through Reagan's American dream with her children's quest to reclaim her in the near future. By turns insightful, poignant and satirical, A Brief History of Living Forever deftly navigates grief and hope in a high-wire act of storytelling.

Praise for SPACEMAN OF BOHEMIA:

'Funny, human and oddly down-to-earth' Guardian

'A superb debut' Literary Review

'Booming with vitality and originality' New York Times

“A superb debut - Sam Kitchener, Literary Review on SPACEMAN OF BOHEMIAA frenetically imaginative first effort, booming with vitality and originality . . . Kalfar's voice is distinct enough to leave tread marks . . . He has such a lively mind and so many ideas to explore . . . Kalfar has an exhilarating flair for imagery . . . He writes boisterously and mordantly. - Jennifer Senior, New York Times on SPACEMAN OF BOHEMIA[An] excellent debut . . . This book could mark the launch of an astronomical career. - James Marriott, The Times on SPACEMAN OF BOHEMIA Dizzyingly inventive , alternately lyrical , earthy, silly and sad - Kathryn Murphy, TLS on SPACEMAN OF BOHEMIA”

Ambitious, exciting . . . Kalfar knows his way around a sentence. By turns aphoristic and lyrical, with touches of Don DeLillo, Kalfar's prose contains plenty of stylish wisdom . . . Mixing fantasy, satire, horror and metaphysics, A Brief History has many stories to tell. But the pulse animating each of them is the shock of sudden loss - of jobs, of loved ones, of a world you thought you knew -- Frank Lawton Daily Telegraph
Jaroslav Kalfar's A Brief History of Living Forever is a book from the future, here to deliver an urgent story about the present. Extending the speculative logics of Franz Kafka's Amerika and working in the dreamlike, psychic registers of Philip K. Dick's Ubik, Kalfar presents an entrancing, lucid, and incisive vision of immortality that starts and ends with the self-this is a brilliant, disorienting, and endlessly fascinating read -- Tom Lin, author of the Carnegie Medal winner The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu
Inventive and heartfelt, this dystopian take on the immigrant experience and the American Dream packs a walloping punch Esquire
Ingenious . . . With a perceptive satirical slant and sharp humour, Kalfar builds a plausibly terrifying world Publishers Weekly
A thoroughly original story from a writer to watch LitHub
A dystopian romp with a tender centre . . . I didn't want it to end -- Kate Knibbs Wired

Jaroslav Kalfar was born in the Czech Republic and immigrated to the United States at the age of fifteen. He earned his MFA at NYU, where he was a Goldwater Fellow and a finalist for the E. L. Doctorow Fellowship. In 2018, he was selected for the National Endowment for the Arts Writing Fellowship. Spaceman of Bohemia, his critically acclaimed debut novel, was a finalist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award and has been translated into fifteen languages. Spaceman, an adaptation of the novel, is forthcoming soon as a major motion picture. Kalfar lives in Brooklyn.

When Adela discovers she has a terminal illness, her thoughts turn to Tereza, the American-raised daughter she gave up at birth. Leaving behind her moody, grown son, Roman, in their native Czech village, she flies to the United States to find the long-lost daughter who never knew her.In New York City, Tereza is working as the star researcher for two suspicious biotech moguls hellbent on developing a 'god pill' to extend human life indefinitely. But before Tereza can find a cure for Adela, her mother dies mysteriously.Narrated from the beyond by Adela, A Brief History of Living Forever is a high-wire act of storytelling. By turns insightful, moving and funny, the novel blends an immigrant mother's heartbreaking journey through the American dream with her children's quest to reclaim her from a country that would erase any record of her existence.

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