Černé roucho – Moore Brian (2022)

The novel Black Robe, which reminds Czech readers of Brian Moore's work after more than 40 years, was published in 1985. Young Jesuit missionary Father Laforgue comes from Europe to the New World to bring the word of God to the pagans. The governor of the vast territory proudly named New France, but which is actually still controlled by the tribes of the Hurons, Iroquois, and Algonquins, who have roamed here since the dawn of time and whom the French call Savages, provides him with little help. His task is to bring salvation to the isolated Huron tribe, decimated by disease, before the coming winter closes the way to them in the far north. He is accompanied by a group of savages who mock his faith and civilization, even though they accept payment in muskets. Father Laforgue is about to enter a world of pagan power, astonishing courage, and terrible cruelty, which will test him as a man and a priest and change him in ways he cannot even imagine. Will God listen to him and give him a sign that his mission has meaning? No other novel captures so well the intense – and catastrophic – discord of different cultures towards each other and our current misunderstandings. At the time of its first publication in 1985, Black Robe was compared to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness...