Sen o mém otci / Sen o mně – Sidon Karol (2016)

Brilliant autobiographical prose, through which the author, not yet thirty, entered the literature of the sixties, brings forth images of childhood, adolescence, and the early years of adulthood from memories. They represent a fragile person searching for his place in the world, torn by passions and doubting his ability to love. The Dream of My Father is the author's debut. The central tragicomic plot revolves around a childhood deception involving a student report card. Little Karol's father was tortured in Terezín, and his mother later remarried. It is the relationship with his mother, the dramatic clashes with her, the escapes from the grip of her love, and the returns that form the content of Karol's narrative. The following novella, The Dream of Me, presents a tormenting confession of a man facing infidelity. The effort to understand the relationship with his own wife (similarly to the previous relationship with his mother) is an attempt to comprehend the mystery of life and death. The brutally candid confession brought forth by the second prose is balanced by the first text, which, thanks to the child's perspective and merciful distance, brings charming humor with characters of storytellers, "seducers," and heroes. The prose is published after more than twenty years in a third edition with the author's afterword.