The Spirit of Pankrác

Confessions of love in the shadow of death

In Pankrák's death row, prisoners wait for their last day. Outside the windows, workers are pounding away, building a guillotine. Anna and Robert, two prisoners sentenced to death, have never met, only a few fleeting glances and an endless desire to love. All you need is a piece of paper and a pencil. In the oppressive atmosphere of the prison cells, they begin to pass on bits of themselves - memories, hope, tenderness - through their hooks. They know that time is running out, but words sprout between them like a flame in the dark. Their story is complemented by the silent heroes - the corridor keeper who delivers the messages and a family from Strašnice who hide the ashes of the executed.

The novel was based on actual hoes written on death row. With deep empathy, the author revives forgotten voices - and shows that even in the most difficult moments, a person can love.

Petra Klabouchová

Petra Klabouchová (born. 1980) comes from Prachatice. She worked for several years in regional press and television after studying journalism and media relations at Masaryk University in Brno. Today she lives alternately in the Czech Republic, Italy and the United States, where she works in the music industry and represents rock bands as a manager. She has previously published the novels The Last Oranges of Cuba (2012), The Fraud of the Golden Pharaoh (2019) and the thriller The English Garden (2020). She is also the author of the two-part children's series Vampire Tales - The Curse of the Vampires and Dangerous Journey (2014). Her most successful work is the detective story The Fountains of the Vltava (2021), for which she won the Johann Steinbrener Prize. In 2023, she published a novel, At the North Wall, and a book, Full Ball, about the rock scene. A year later, in 2024, she published Ignis fatuus, a horror story from Šumava.