Translated by Francis McKee
Dark Tales by Ester Krumbachová is a translation by Francis McKee of a series of fairy tales by the Czech costume designer, filmmaker and scriptwriter, Ester Krumbachová. In 1994 she published First Book of Ester, a collection of ‘intentionally unsent letters or letters forgotten unintentionally’ punctuated by a series of dark fairy tales. Krumbachová’s dark fairy tales reward concentrated study. Her stories retain the structures and hierarchies of fairy magic, kings, queens, and mutable swans but set those elements adrift in a contemporary world of corrupt leaders, psychiatrists, overeating and unreliable travel agents. And, while they at first seem like an anomaly in her general practice, it becomes clear with hindsight that there is a strand of fairy tale running through the film she directed, Murdering the Devil (1970), and other stories surface casually in lectures on costume in film.
Self-published, Glasgow, 2018.