Authors & Works
Sven Regener (Germany): Ještě jedno, pane Lehmanne
Translation: Jana Zoubková, Doplněk 2009
Frank Lehman commonly addressed as Mr Lehman by his friends works in a pub at the eastern end of West Berlin in district called Kreuzberg where every second person dreams of becoming an artist. Not so Mr. Lehman who doesn’t won’t to be anyone else but simply a barman. But autumn of 1989 is coming and Mr. Lehman’s peaceful routine is suddenly disrupted by several events.
Jana Šrámková (Czech Republic): Hruškadóttir
Translation: Labyrint 2008
To find friendship, space to live, to get rid of fear and on the brink of adulthood “adopt” oneself into a family. Is it possible to tread water in a pool of sorrow? Is there bedrock from which it is worth to bounce back from? A prosaic début with which the author won the Jiří Orten Prize (2009) tells a story of life’s love which comprises of more than just a relationship between man and woman.
Erlend Loe (Norway): Tiche dny v Mixing Part
Translation: Kateřina Krištůfková, Vakát 2010
The couple Bror and Nina set off with their children to Germany a country which Nina adores and Bror hates. During a one-month period the crisis of their marriage fully manifests itself. Both of them are dealing with it in their own way – and both in a very distinctive manner. And in the same way as in the previous novel the author proves again that he can write about complex issues in an understandable and humorous way.
Naja Marie Aidt (Denmark): Pavián
Translation: Helena Březinová, Dauphin 2010
As the title of this compilation of tales suggests its perspective focuses on the alarming capture of the dark, animal side of everyday existence of contemporary human beings. Infidelity, illness, violence, anxiety, sex, death – the tales revolve around these themes. The style is laconic, laid-back however what is being described here is a very distant picture from a daily banality.
Eva Menasse (Austria): Vienna
Translation: Milan Tvrdík, Archa 2010
In the spirit of modern storytelling about the so called ‘places in memory’ which find their way out through autobiographical motives, the author approaches stories from her Viennese family with Jewish-Catholic origins which is dispersed around the world due to political circumstances. Through combining history and fiction she creates a tragicomic novel-like portrayal of a restless and cruel 20th century.
Petru Cimpoesu (Romania): Christina Domestica a lovci duší
Translation: Jiří Našinec, Havran 2008
Author of this fictitious “cheerful apocalypse” in which there are elements of a spy thriller, sci-fi, non-fiction literature and political satire and which also contains apocryphal diary of Nicolae Ceausescu also ranks among one of the foremost European post-modern writers. Similarly to his previous novels this one is an unhappy, intelligent and grave reading as well.
Willem Frederik Hermans (the Netherlands): Temná komora Damokova
Translation: Magda de Bruin Hüblová, Host 2010
Novel about a tobacconist who takes part in resistance movement and who after liberation discovers in awe that on the contrary to his actions he is charged with collaboration, belongs to the classical repertoire of the Dutch literature of the 20th century. Czech reader has only been able to get acquainted with the novel recently half a century after its first publication.
Miroslav Nahacz (Poland): Čáp a Lola
Translation: Barbora Gregorová, Dybbuk 2010
An author of this novel has been since his début until his tragic death (2007) praised by critics as one of the most talented young Polish authors. Portrayal of the generation that is reaching adulthood at the end of the nineties during the 20th century, is imprisoned between the trivial reality of the consumerist society and overwhelming drug hallucinations and is looking for their place in a complicated and obscure world.
Attila Bartis (Hungary): Klid
Translation: Kateřina Horváthová, Kniha Zlín 2010
The main hero of this novel is a young writer who is looking after his mother a former actress who had stopped leaving the house. Author, through this story which is based on Oedipus-like foundations in a dense and plastic abbreviation, unfolds chasmy mechanisms of power, addiction and humiliation which form the psychical world of those who give preference to quietness before freedom.
Lorenzo Silva (Spain): Bolševikova slabina
Translation: Eva Blinková-Pelánová, Garamond 2009
Swift and amusing storytelling in which the main hero, a former philosophy student and current bank manager who suffers from inner emptiness and loss of illusions, at first seems to be a satirical novel about pains of modern society. However this Spanish version of Lolita blended with Chandler-like crude style, in a surprising finish gains features of a nearly classical tragedy.
Paolo Giordano (Italy): Osamělost prvočísel
Translation: Alice Flemrová, Odeon 2009
“It only takes couple of seconds to make a decision whose consequences one has to bear for the rest of his live.” The truthfulness of this statement has been personally proven by characters of this novel which tears down the myth of cheerful childhood and family happiness and points towards exaggerated ambitions placed into children and the inability of accepting that one’s guilt can change family environment into a chocking trap.
Francisco Jose Viegas (Portugal): Muž bez minulosti
Translation: Lada Weissová, Garamond 2009
At the beginning there is an unknown murdered man lacking any sign of attributes which would make him fit into the machinery of modern world. All he has is a passport full of ink stamps – Angola, Brazil, India, Guinea-Bissau. An investigator who doesn’t want to reconcile with the idea that a man could live through half a century and die with no implications or consequences to the rest of the world follows the signs of the dead man on a venture through time and space.
Simon Mawer (United Kingdom): Skleněný pokoj
Translation: Lukáš Novák, Kniha Zlín 2009
Author of this novel which is inspired by villa Tugendhat in Brno depicts an epic story of modern Czech history which revolves around a fictitious functionalist villa. The villa is placed on the same level of importance as a young and rich Jewish-Christian couple. However after the Nazi occupation it moves from one hands to another as a symbol of interrupted tradition and human fate.
Maria Peuro (Finland): Na okraji světla
Translation: Vladimír Piskoř, Havran 2009
Disturbing, rough and lyrically dreamy in the same time is a story about an adolescent Finish girl Kristina who was born in a region where the railway line ends, soil is permanently frozen and neighbours are usually unfriendly, unhelpful or weird. The story flows, surges and bubbles like a river which runs through Kristina’s native village and actually through the whole novel as well.
Annelies Verbeke (Belgium-Flanders): Spi!
Translation: Jana Pellarová, Kniha Zlín 2010
Maja is young and beautiful. She has everything she needs to live a happy life. On the other hand ageing Benoit is a son of a prostitute and a pupil of several homes for children. Both are however connected by chronical insomnia. Maja is at first trying to face it in every possible way but nothing helps. In a moment of despair when she has seemingly lost everything, meeting Benoit will turn her life upside down.
Jean Maris Blas de Robles (France): Tam, kde jsou tygři domovem
Translation: Ladislav Václavík, Host 2010
Eleazard von Wogau is a journalist working in Brazil. He is an expert on life and work of baroque encyclopedist Athanasia Kircher on whose biography he is currently working. Eleazard’s journey through this biography is interacting with adventures of other characters: his ex-wife, drug addicted daughter or boy Nelson who is determined to avenge the death of his father.
Alexander Ahndoril (Sweden): Režisér
Translation: Dagmar Hartlová, Nakladatelství Lidové noviny 2010
The main character of this symptomatically named novel is nobody else but Ingmar Bergman and his famous film “Hoste Vecere Pane”. The author uniquely combines triviality, the surreal, burlesque and wickedness and delivers them with a poetic catchy profundity. In many aspects remarkable piece of art has thus been created and in the same time it comes as no surprise that the book has never acquired Bergman’s blessing.
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