Ozvěny přízraků (2026)

This Czech-language novel follows Sung Jen, a former promising pianist in her thirties who lives in the quiet streets of Beijing and now gives private music lessons. She dreams of having a child, but her work-obsessed husband refuses. Their ordinary life is disrupted by the arrival of his mother from the traditional province of Yunnan and by mysterious packages of mushrooms that begin appearing in their apartment. The mushrooms soon disappear into the meals Sung Jen and her mother-in-law prepare for dinner, while secrets from her husband’s past gradually come to light. Shaken by what she learns, Sung Jen ventures into Beijing’s tangled hutongs, traditional alleyways, in search of a ghostly piano genius whose music draws her back to the person she once was. She enters a world where the boundary between reality and illusion fades, and where confronting the past may mean letting everything burn and starting again. In this critically acclaimed, dreamlike novel with elements of magical realism, An Jü reveals life as an invisible web of memories, desires and dreams that occasionally emerge like mushrooms after rain.