Novel
Hranice stínu
Not translated into English
Jan Čep · 1935
Synopsis
Prokop Randa, in his thirties, a schoolteacher and poet, returns to the village where he was born to seek peace after a life of failures. There he finds his grandfather Zavadil, a former schoolmate, Jan Šimon, who has also come back without knowing why, the priest Martin Stoklasa, and the Vaňka family, whose daughter Jiřina, beautiful and imperious, unsettles the men, down to the farmhand. All of them stand on the edge of a border that the book calls the shadow.
Context
The only novel by its author, who wrote mainly short stories and essays, the book appeared in 1935 from Melantrich, where he worked as a reader. It was translated into German, Dutch and Serbo-Croatian. After the author's exile, his work reached Czech readers only with difficulty; the novel was reissued in Brno in 1996, and students of the University of Olomouc made a film from it.
Who it is for
A novel of the inner life, in a lyrical language; no French or English translation, though the author lived twenty-five years in Paris.
Prizes and reception
Annual prize of the Melantrich publishing house in 1935; with the 1926 short story collection, one of the two best-known works of its author.