Jeden oceán, dvě moře, tři kontinenty – N'Sondé Wilfried (2026)

This Czech-language novel, inspired by real events, follows the fate of Nsaku Ne Vunda, a young African man from the Kingdom of Kongo who becomes a Catholic priest and is chosen at the beginning of the seventeenth century to travel to Rome as the first envoy of his country and meet the Pope. His journey unexpectedly takes him across three continents—Africa, America and Europe—and becomes a painful pilgrimage through a world shaped by colonialism, the slave trade and cultural conflict. What begins as a spiritual mission gradually becomes a testimony to the suffering and violence inflicted by slave traders on Ne Vunda’s countrymen. Wilfried N’Sondé combines a historical reconstruction of real events with lyrical language and Christian and African spirituality, creating one of the significant works of contemporary Francophone literature. The novel has received, among other distinctions, the Swiss Prix Ahmadou-Kourouma. Wilfried N’Sondé (born 1968) is a Congolese-French writer, musician and performer. Born in Congo and raised in France, he explores identity, displacement and the possibility of intercultural understanding, linking historical memory with lyrical, rhythmically musical prose.