Byt - Román ve dvou – Šrámková Jana (2025)

An experimental novel from the present. Daniel owns an apartment in Tábor, but works in Prague and only goes home on weekends. Zuzana has left her boyfriend and doesn't have enough money, so she welcomes the rental at least for weekdays. The two are connected only by the space they each inhabit in their own way, and that space simultaneously divides them. How could two people actually have anything in common? He is caring for his dying father, but the care for the edges of life always falls to her. His heart has sunk, she has a murmur in her brain. Two contemporary stories that touch and yet miss each other, two soliloquies that can only become a conversation thanks to the reader. Jana Šrámková and Jan Němec have found an unusual way to write a book together while each writing separately. The result is an original novel that can be read from one side or the other, or even in alternating order. However, it is not a literary game, but a fateful choice: the direction of reading depends on nothing less than Daniel's and Zuzana's future. But isn't life ultimately a palindrome? In the ellipse sleeps a lion, says Daniel. Through the ear in the moss, replies Zuzana.