Radji zelet v divoin – Setkn s umavskmi samoti Paln Ale (2019)

Some people build a hut in the forest, others live in caravans or in mountain solitude, while one sleeps directly beneath the trees. Some can be reached by car, others only on foot. These umava hermits and solitary people lead lives and hold opinions unlike anything most of us know. This book is about meeting them. Eight interviews with people who have lived outside civilisation for many years offer a glimpse into a mysterious world of which we know almost nothing. The book encounters wild animals, harsh winters and even ghosts. Some of the hermits are highly rational, especially the two women interviewed, while others tell their lives almost as myths. These accounts also have value, though different from a list of verified facts. The way these modern hermits inhabit the landscape may soon itself become a myth, if it has not already. The purpose of Rather Go Mad in the Wilderness is neither to catalogue eccentrics nor to provide an alternative guide to the umava mountains, but to plunge into the mysterious corners of the landscape and the human soul: into prolonged solitude and isolation, and into a parallel world that nevertheless asks deeply unsettling questions of our own. The interviews are conducted by writer and journalist Ale Paln, recipient of the Magnesia Litera and Czech Literary Fund awards, with photographs by Jan ibk, winner of Czech Press Photo and the Golden Prisma Award.