The Přelouč Novel was written secretly being sent by post and wtritten over a beer. Then Škvorecký appreciated it.
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Karel „Cara“ Novotný was born on 17 January 1954 in Pardubice. He grew up with his parents and older brother Ludvík in Břehy near Přelouč. After primary school he became a turner for Semtín, where he worked until 1992. In 1969 he started his compulsory military service - there he learned to play the guitar. After returning from the army he moved to Přelouč. In the second half of the 1970s he and his friends started publishing a samizdat magazine NH (Následky horka - Consequences of Heat). At that time, he also became a singer-songwriter known outside the East Bohemian region - he won the Ekopíseň competition and performed in Czechoslovak TV. At the end of the 1980s, he and his friend Tomáš Mazal started writing a book, which they finished in December 1988. The Přelouč Novel, as they called it, was published under the pseudonyms Josef Vadný and Zdenička Spruzená. The second volume of the book was published later under the title Jáma (The Pit). In the 1990s he became friends with Bohumil Hrabal. After the revolution, he gradually left the songwriting scene and began to devote himself to visual art. In 2001 he got married. At the time of recording (2025) he lived in Přelouč.