Drak na polní cestě – Hájíček Jiří (2025)

A drama set in the contemporary countryside facing the pressures of big business.

Kristýna, a music teacher, returns to Nová Lhotka from Prague after years. At thirty-five, she tries to mend her relationships with her family and forget the past in the South Bohemian countryside. She has known Tomáš, the director of the local farm, forever, and they are united in their efforts to save their personal lives and also a dilapidated building in the village square. Tomáš is fifty-five, has lived alone for a long time, and feels he is aging. With Kristýna comes hope, but gradually also disagreements stemming from the differences between life in the city and in the village. And then black cars appear in Lhotka. Young men in suits and ties get out, going from cottage to cottage, offering money for shares in the farm. And Tomáš realizes that he will have to deal with a much more complex crisis than just his own...

Hájíček's new novel takes place in the contemporary countryside, which, after the collectivization of the 1950s and property restitutions in the 1990s, faces new dramas. "Dragons" of big business are swooping down on agricultural enterprises, and life in the village is changing once again. However, the people remain the same.