Zero hour
Audiobook
Zero hour
When the hands on the clock of life stop, they need to be moved forward
The sixth novel by Jana Poncarová. Hedvika Adler returns to post-war Czechoslovakia after seven years in London and military service in Africa. As a driver for the British Women's Auxiliary Corps, she drove across the desert from Haifa to Cairo. Her parents perished in a concentration camp, the Soviets settled in the family villa in Prague and she was left with only a summer house near Pilsen. He tries to rebuild his former life from the rubble, but gradually discovers that the pieces have been lost and nothing is the same. The horrors of the war and years of separation had alienated her and her husband, and another man had stepped into her path. Hedvika begins working at the British Embassy in Prague and befriends the writer Marcia Davenport, a close friend of Jan Masaryk. Meanwhile, she watches helplessly as the ideals that brought her to military service are brutally crushed and one totalitarianism in her homeland is replaced by another. Will she manage to emerge from the restless limbo of zero hour?
Jana Poncarová
Jana Poncarová is a writer and journalist. It is inspired by real events from the history of the 20th century, based on research and interviews with witnesses. She debuted in 2018 with the novel Podbrdské ženy, which was met with an enthusiastic response from readers. Her novel Eugenie won the Readers' Prize in the Czech Book 2020 competition. The novels Elizabeth and Nina, The Cyclist, The Actress, Zero Hour and Double Life followed. In collaboration with historian Jiří Sankot, she wrote the book Deník Věrka Kohnová, which recalls the fate of this Jewish girl and her family. Vera's story was retold to children in the book The Secrets of Vera's Diary published by Albatros. For the non-traditional tourist edition she prepared the guidebook Behind the Silence: Bohemian Forest.
