Stepy v mlce Hrn Pavel (2025)

This Czech-language novel follows M. M., a Czech official with literary ambitions who serves as secretary to the general manager of a dairy conglomerates branch for France and Eastern Europe, based in Paris. A married father of a daughter named Albta, he meets Maud, a salon leftist Parisian woman. Their irregular meetings take place in Parisian cafs, bistros and museums. M. M.s character is shaped by growing up during the Communist normalization period and by his fathers destructive upbringing, which manifests itself in adulthood as a chronic lack of self-confidence. The story is told through the laconic perspective of his wife. While M. M. enjoys his dream Paris, the narrator regularly escapes to Prague or the Czech countryside, places that offer her a more appealing ordinary world in contrast to the lively, blas French metropolis. The novel is also inspired by the stories of the medieval prankster Enpgl, embodied by the narrators lover.