Partially banned upon publication and translated into English for the first time this year, René, or: A Young Man’s Adventures and Experiences (1783–85) found new readers in the communist era thanks to its critiques of feudalism, capitalism, and the Catholic Church. Dobrota Pucherová introduces us to this hybrid work, which mixes the bildungsroman with the philosophical novel, the romance, the adventure story, the travelogue, the history book, and the orientalist fantasy.