Prehistory and other times
E-book, Czech
Prehistory and other times
A cruel world described in language as pure as water from a well
God' s task is to create, and people' s task is to name, says the author. Her novel village Pravěk is the center of the universe, located between the Černá and Bělka rivers, and its borders are guarded by archangels from all four corners of the world: Raphael, Gabriel, Michael and Uriel. A realistic story with fantastic elements takes place throughout the twentieth century and tells the story of the destructive power of time. It presents us with the fates of the inhabitants of Prehistory and their daily struggle with everyday life marked by major historical events.
Individual chapters describe the " time" of the novel' s heroes: the time of Michael and his wife Jenovefa, Misha and her coffee grinder, Spikelets and her daughters Ruth or the time of the mysterious Game, which swallowed up the landowner Popělský, time mycelium and orchard, but also God, which exists outside of time, but at the same time it manifests itself in time and its changes.
They wrote about the book:
In this epic novel, Olga Tokarczuk draws on the traditions of magical realism, creating a world steeped in ancient myths, yet deeply rooted in the present.
- Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Olga Tokarczuk
(born. 1962) is one of the most popular and most appreciated contemporary Polish writers. Her books have been translated into more than fifty languages. She achieved international success with her third book, Prehistory and Other Times (1996, Czech: 1999, 2007, 2024). The thriller Drive Your Wagon and Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (2009, Czech 2010, 2017) was filmed by director Agnieszka Hollandová. For her novels The Runners (2007, Czech 2008) and The Books of Jacob (2014, Czech 2016), Tokarczuk won the most prestigious Polish literary prize, Nike, and for The Runners she also won the International Man Booker Prize. Last but not least, she is also the laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2018.
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