Soukromá trestní obžaloba – Dostál Zeno (2023)

Through the lens of the former Nuremberg laws, the central hero, ten-year-old Jakub, is a child from a so-called mixed marriage. And although he lives with his parents and grandparents in the picturesque Moravian town of Konice, the events of World War II cannot fail to impact his world. From the ban on performing at the children's carnival, through the forced closure of his Jewish grandparents' grocery store, to the call-up for transport, which first affects Jakub's grandparents and later his mother Charlota. The novel 'Jakub's Unusual Maturation' captures the personal catastrophe of millions of families in an intimate portrait, mostly kindly and childishly naively. The ticking of the wall clock in the 'unknown house' at his aunt's, where Jakub manages to wait for the end of the war, is no less a loud indictment of reality than the noisy scenes from the arrival ramps of concentration camps. ***** From Dostál's extensive work, this is the most personally tuned testimony, clearly intended as the author's biography. The two-part novel was created on the cusp of epochs, with the manuscript of the first part dated 1987, and the second part completed in 1991, and yet, or precisely because of the turbulence of the nineties, it ultimately did not reach the planned publication. As we publish the novel today with new illustrations by Boris Jirků, we are convinced that...