Tatranka v Hanoji aneb Vietnam, můj paralelní svět – Kovářová Lenka (2020)

Getting to know Vietnam up close, seeing and especially experiencing what it is like... This unusually conceived book is not a classic travelogue introducing the landmarks of a given place. It is more of a "book that opens the eyes and soul," composed of a collection of "portraits" about Vietnam and its people. A kind of "feeling report" with a number of observations and facts that a classic guidebook overlooks and cannot even notice. Here, we will discover real Vietnam and real Vietnamese – in a real world, but full of experiences that are sometimes almost surreal. And we, the readers, can enjoy this journey together with the author of these travel stories. She lived here long enough for Vietnam to become her "parallel world." Her descriptions of her adventures are very immediate. So, when she delights in exotic food, it is we who salivate; when she shivers from the cold (which is rare in Vietnam), it is we who start to chatter our teeth; when she enjoys a wild bus ride, it is we whose heads spin with exhilaration. And together with the author, we mainly laugh and smile. Her observations are fresh, entertaining, poetic, with a sense of paradox. All of this is complemented by a subtle play with language, to which she has a connection as a Slovak writing in Czech and settled in the Czech Republic (she mainly considers herself a Tatra girl, as she...