On the night of 30 and 31 May 1945, Brno citizens of German nationality were sent to the so-called Brno Death March and expelled from the city. Gerta Schnirch, mother of a several-month-old daughter joins other women, children and old men and leaves as well. The gruelling march ends in the village of Pohořelice where many expellees succumb to the epidemic of typhoid and dysentery. Gerta survives as a forced labourer in South Moravia, where she remains even after the transports end. To regain her Czechoslovak citizenship, she returns home and experiences the tumultuous events of the second half of the twentieth century. The remarkably vivid and powerful novel asks painful questions about guilt, revenge and forgiveness between the Czechs and Germans and depicts a disturbed relationship between a mother and her daughter, affected not only by the restricted environment the marginalized Czech German women lived in, but also by the mutual misunderstanding of the two generations and the inability to convey their personal experience. The genius loci of the booming city of Brno provides an unmistakable atmosphere of the story.
作者:
Kateřina Tučková
Kateřina Tučková is a Czech author, playwright, publicist, art historian, and curator of exhibitions.
She has won several literary awards, including the Magnesia Litera Award and the Czech Bestseller Award. She was awarded the Freedom, Democracy and Human Rights Award by the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes in 2017 and received Czech State Award for Literature in 2022. She also received the Premio Libro d’Europa at the Book Fair in Salerno, Italy.
Her books have been translated into twenty-two languages.
朗讀者
Vincent Tang Ka-lai
場地:
commaa - Shop 4, G/F, 11 Po Yan Street, Sheung Wan
