Boženka a disidenti – Jendrisková Jarka (2025)

Ústí nad Labem Region. Former Sudetenland. A region where the eyes are dazzled by the beauty of nature and the ugliness of industrial monsters. A region that once drowned in chemical fog and today is drowning in social problems. But also villages along the Elbe and in the hills of Děčín, Ústí, and Litoměřice. These are the backdrops for the short story collection Boženka and the Dissidents. The stories Vesnický románek and Boženka and the Dissidents take place in the early 1980s in the countryside of Ústí, and they waft the spirit of normalization, as well as forbidden love and death, to the readers. The stories Holčička a kadibudka and Péťa a zlaté prasátko, as their titles suggest, feature child heroes. A girl's holiday at her grandmother's in Děčín in the 1960s and Christmas in a contemporary village, seen through the eyes of little Péťa, will take readers back to their childhood. The story Ontaria na obzoru recalls old grievances against North Bohemian orchardists, but it also gives hope that the core of a good variety will sprout again. And the story Narozeniny allows us to believe that embarking on a journey without return does not have to mean abandoning those who remain.