Communist Prague of the 1980s was a closed, gray world in which, for some, freedom had to be carved out in hidden places and unlikely communities. Young Beny leaves home to escape a violent father and finds refuge at a scrapyard run by a man known as the Fabrikant. Alongside Hany, an invalid, the drifter Julča and his brother Víťan, he becomes part of an odd surrogate family in which everyone harbors secrets and has a dark side. Beny needs to avoid military service, make some money, and find both work and a place to live, but above all he needs time to devote to his one true passion, photography. During the “real socialism” of the early 1980s, what might seem childishly simple today was a shady, if not downright illegal adventure – especially if you were barely twenty and didn’t take anything too seriously.
An excerpt from the novel, translated by Alžběta Belánová, was featured in Asymptote Journal.
Published in 2021 by Host Publishers in the Czech Republic.
368 pages / 135 x 205 mm
