Na mramorových útesech (2026)

Ernst Jünger’s 1939 novella was regarded at the time of its publication as one of the boldest works of literature to appear during the Nazi era, and contemporaries received it as a book of hidden resistance and an allegorical critique of the Third Reich, with symbolic figures representing the Master Forester and Hitler, and Braguemart and Goebbels. In the beautiful land of Velká Marina, somewhere in the south on the shores of a shining lake, two brothers settle in a house at the foot of marble cliffs to study flowers. In the deep forests around Marina, however, the power of the terrifying human hunter known as the Master Forester begins to grow. Evil spreads from the forests like gloomy vapours, the ancient order of Marina gradually decays, and open conflict eventually erupts, setting the entire region ablaze. The brothers abandon their studies and contemplation to resist the Master Forester and take part in ghostly battles in the night forests. Set outside real time and space, the novella combines images of magical beauty with scenes of decay and terror, while its hallucinatory episodes are presented in analytically precise language.