Honzlová

A novel from the 1950s in Czechoslovakia

The 1950s in Czechoslovakia was a time of terrifying communist terror that made interpersonal relations unstable. Often it was not at all clear who could and who could not be trusted. Zdena Salivarová captured this morbid atmosphere in a unique way in her novel Honzlová. She began writing it in Prague, and finished it after her emigration to Toronto (1. edition was published in 1972). A short period of one summer concentrates a ridiculously tragic story, spiced with bizarre memories and raw language. The book is authentic because the author does not invent the realities, but translates her personal experiences and describes the historical epoch vividly and vividly. This is literature that belongs in the library of all who want to know our history and touch the mentality of a broken time.