Jiří Kratochvíl: Lehni, bestie (Lež, bestio)

Translation: Jan Stachowski, ATUT Wrocław 2009

Jiří Kratochvíl (born 1940) - playwriter, writer and journalist who had only been publishing in terms of the underground movement up until 1989. He was awarded several times for his novels which are thematically bound to his dear Brno: the Tom Stoppard prize (1991), the Czech Bookseller’s prize (1993), the Egon Hostovský prize (1996), the Karel Čapek prize (1998), the Jaroslav Seifert prize (1999) and the prestigious Magnesia Litera prize in 2007. His last novel published last year “Slib” with a subheading “Rekviem za padesátá léta” has been highly acclaimed by the critics and well accepted by the public.
The novel “Lehni, bestie!” (2002) is concerned with the era of Czechoslovakian Stalinism and portraits a picture of a wicked caricature of reality. It narrates a story about exceptionally terrible adventures of children who are located in a bizarre “house” with a Spartan-like education. At first the reader is under the impression that this has to be some kind of a military training school however later it will be revealed that the children are being prepared to serve as victims - victims convicted during exemplary political processes. A simple objective - a Stalinist-like style of persuasion about the ideology of communism. The book is primarily a testimony about the immense weight of mental dependence and consequences of brainwashing. The novel won the title “Best Book of 2002” in a public enquiry organized by a prestigious journal “Lidové Noviny”.