Title: The Lake
Author: Bianca Bellová
Publisher (cz): Host
Publisher (eng): Parthian Books
Translator: Alex Zucker
Year: Original Czech: 2016
English version: 2022
The Lake
A dystopian page-turner about the coming of age of a young hero, which won the Czech nationals Magnesia Litera Book of the Year (2017), 2017 EU Prize for Literature and EBRD Literature Prize 2023.
A fishing village at the end of the world. A lake that is drying up and, ominously, pushing out its banks. The men have vodka, the women troubles, the children eczema to scratch at. Born into this unforgiving environment, Nami, a young boy, embarks on a journey with nothing but a bundle of nerves, a coat that was once his grandfather’s and the vague idea of searching for his mother, who disappeared from his life at a young age. To uncover the greatest mystery of his life, he must sail across and walk around the lake and finally sink to its bottom.
This novel is a raw account of life in a devastated land and the harsh, primitive circumstances under which people fight to survive. Nami’s story touches on various contemporary societal and political issues from life in post-soviet Europe to ecology, but they never take the spotlight away from the powerful central narrative. The tension between the novel’s uncertain setting, both in time and space, and its naturalistic realism transforms one boy’s coming of age into an often-disconcerting modern myth.
Bianca Bellová (1970) was born in Prague, where she lives halfway between the Balkan and British parts of her family. She is a writer, translator and interpreter. She has published several books of fiction, most notably the novel Jezero (The Lake, 2016) which has won a number of literary awards, including the 2017 EU Prize for Literature and the 2023 EBRD Literature Prize, and its publication rights have been sold to twenty-five countries. Her latest books are Ostrov (The Island, 2022) and Transfer (2023).
Performer: Jason Lee
Poet, Senior Lecturer at Hong Kong Baptist University
