Vesel esk Vnoce Damijo Alena (2025)

This Czech-language novel imagines what would happen if Zdenk Borovecs well-known song Vnoce, Vnoce pichzej became a book. Its festive episodes combine bitter humour with sweet nostalgia, showing how Christmas, theoretically a season of peace and quiet, can also be a time when our closest relatives delight us one moment and drive us to distraction the next. The main narrator, Tereza, must cope with teenage children testing her patience as well as well-intentioned but sometimes maddening advice from her parents. The story takes readers through a typically Czech Christmas, from baking cookies and preparing carp with potato salad to watching a brand-new fairy tale and the iconic film Pelky on Christmas Eve. Alongside family escapades, it offers historical curiosities, interesting facts, old traditions and travel observations, including a umava journey following in the footsteps of Andl Pn.