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Hana Andronikova Czech Republic PWF 2006
Hana Andronikova is one of the best known young Czech writers at work today. Born in 1967 in Zlín, she went on to study English and Czech literature at Charles University. Her first novel, The Sound of the Sundial, was published in 2001 to great acclaim, receiving the Book Club Literary Award and the 2002 Magnesia Litera Award.
A mature, cultivated, and intensely readable work, the novel spans from a small Czech town to 1930’s India, a Nazi concentration camp, and contemporary America, telling the story of the fatal romance between an engineer named Tomaš Keppler and a young Jewish girl named Rachel, narrated by their son Daniel.
“A couple of months later, in November '32, we set out together on the route to the sun. The ship sailed from Marseilles, the Monarch of Bermuda. Lavish evening parties, long dresses and dancing. A conjuror and a ventriloquist... Sails bellied in the gathering wind and the waves grew bigger and more terrifying. The heavens clouded over and the horizon disappeared.”
Andronikova’s book of short stories, Heart on the Hook, cemented her reputation as an emerging force in the Czech literary scene.
Hana Andronikova died at the age of 44.
Hana Andronikova: Another World
24.01.2008 Readings
He couldn’t waste time. He went about finding how other companies’ builders coped with the Indian climate, solved the ventilation problem and braved monsoons and earthquakes. On the hoof, he fitted out workshops for mechanics and carpenters. Stocking the company shops had to proceed at lightening speed. In Bengal and neighbouring Assam alone there were a hundred shops to set up.
Hana Andronikova: The Sound of the Sundial (part 2)
24.01.2008 Readings
There were demonstrations in Prague. The Germans closed the universities and imprisoned some students. Several were shot.
Hana Andronikova: The Sound of the Sundial (part 1)
24.01.2008 Readings
The Taj Mahal, the splendour of Mogul architecture, the white marble mausoleum on the edge of the desert. The Taj Mahal, the immortal love of a man for a woman. The poet Rabindranath Tagore wrote that the Taj Mahal is a teardrop on the cheek of time.
