Bohumil Hrabal as an outsider?

This article deals with the subject of Bohumil Hrabal, one of the greatest Czech 20(th) century writers, and his image as an outsider. It seems that today this problem involves an issue that is self-explanatory but often questionable. There are two sides to this issue. The first deals with the writer's position in Czech society, and the time when he voluntarily joined the world of industry, i.e. the common people working in factories, in the late 1940s and 1950s. The second deals with Hrabal's position in Czech cultural and literary life, his relationship with the official literature of that time, with political obstacles related to publishing on the one hand, and endeavours to make that publishing successful on the other. The central question that arises, and to which the author of this article tries to provide an answer, is the following: Was Hrabal indeed a literary or a social outsider, and why was he, or why was he not?