Jaroslav Ha¨ek's world-famous satirical farce The Good Soldier ¦vejk has been translated into over sixty languages, and is one of the best-known Czech works ever published. A soldier in the First World War who never actually sees any combat, Josef ¦vejk is The Good Soldier's awkward protagonistand none of the other characters can quite decide whether his bumbling efforts to get to the front are genuine or not. Often portrayed as one of the first anti-war novels, Ha¨ek's classic satire is a tour-de-force of modernist writing, influencing later writers such as Hemingway, Faulkner and Joseph Heller. In this version, it has been sensitively and carefully abridged.