Zmatky – Mikulecká Klára (2026)

This Czech-language novel explores the relationship between mothers and daughters across three generations, and the challenges of parenthood, including good intentions that often fail to match reality and instead become a source of misunderstanding. The narrator is the youngest woman, Bětka, who, despite her artistic profession and the appearance of a bohemian life, has a restrained view of her own possibilities and behaves mostly pragmatically. When she unexpectedly becomes pregnant by a much older partner who is also expecting a child with another woman, her life takes an unforeseen turn and the carefully constructed security around her begins to collapse. The chance to reconcile with her mother is thwarted by her death, forcing Bětka into a painful reckoning. She moves into her grandmother’s house and, while renovating it, reassesses not only her relationship with her mother but also her feelings towards her admired grandmother and her generally reserved attitude towards other people. The renovation of the house thus becomes, above all, a reconstruction of her own life.