Autor: Karin Lednická
Nakladatelství: Bílá vrána
Novel chronicle of a lost city, 1894-1921.
The book's subtitle succinctly summarises the story of a former pastoral village that built its prosperity on coal mining, only to decline a century later - also because of coal mining.
Today, there is nothing left of the grand buildings and soaring cathedral. Just a leaning church that looms steeply and warningly into the barren landscape. The book begins with the huge mining disaster of 1894, which hit the lives of the inhabitants of the whole region hard. These include the heroes of this book, whose turbulent fates we can follow over the next quarter of a century. Barbora, Julka and Ludwik represent three completely different storylines, which, however, intertwine in many places and create a plastic picture of a half-forgotten time, the harshness of which is in many ways almost unimaginable for today's reader.
Each of the protagonists faces life's challenges in his own way: some patiently submit to them, others try to grasp the chances offered by the fermenting times. But in all of their fates, the great events of history repeatedly and mercilessly intervene, and can easily turn the efforts of an ordinary man into dust. Or not.
The story is based on real events, many of which have not yet been treated in Czech fiction. The narrative proceeds at a dramatic pace and with such authenticity that the plot often turns before the reader's eyes into a film recording even what until recently remained hidden in the thirteenth chamber of Czech history.
Translated with www.DeepL.com
