History of Light

Second edition of the award-winning novel about the photographer František Drtikol. Have you ever wondered what a story written with a beam of light would look like? First, it would not be an ordinary story, but an extraordinary destiny; Secondly, his hero would be the photographer, the keeper of the light; and third, it would be a fate full of shadows, of course. Who was František Drtikol? Dandy from a small-town mining town, world-famous photographer, whose business was going out of business, a master of nudes, who's never had any luck with women, mystic and Buddhist, who believed in communism; man of many external contradictions and their internal synthesis. Jan Němec (1981) comes up with an extensive and, for contemporary Czech prose, quite unusually conceived novel fresco, an artistic and spiritual Bildungsroman that covers more than half a century: The silver mines of Příbram, Munich in the Art Nouveau period and the bohemia of the First Republic come to life here, naked models walk along the lines and light blends imperceptibly with consciousness... My name is Drtikol. I was crushing the wheels that were gripping me. I'm a photographer. I was shooting with the light. I write to people's souls with the light of knowledge. František Drtikol Jan Němec (born. 1981) studied religious studies and sociology at Masaryk University in Brno, where he is a PhD student. For his prose debut The Game for Four Hands (Second City, 2009) he was nominated for the Jiří Orten Prize. He works as an editor of Hosta and collaborates with the weekly Respekt. He lives alternately in Brno and Polička.

Book Details:
Author: Jan Nemec
Year of publication: 2014
ISBN: 978-80-749-1486-7
Number of pages: 472