Knka o Babice a jej autorce ern Vclav (2021)

This Czech-language book explores the relationship between Boena Nmcov and her grandmother, the inspiration for Nmcovs celebrated novel Babika. The grandmother is portrayed as a loving, understanding and wise woman whose selfless goodness and affection illuminate young Barunkas childhood, which she transforms into a poetic idyll and a dream of a past that can never return and perhaps never truly existed. Yet the real lives of both women are marked by hardship. The old woman moves from one daughters home to another because she is not always welcome, and eventually dies in Vienna. At thirteen, Barunka is sent away to be raised in the family of a castle official, and at seventeen she is married without love. Her mother does not even attend the wedding of her unwanted child. The later life of this exceptional and courageous woman, gifted writer and troubled mother seems foreshadowed by this unhappy beginning to adulthood.