Radka Denemarková: Hours of Lead

“I had to write this book because I understood that I am living in a time when something essential is fracturing and changing and I don’t know what. Beneath me tectonic shifts are taking place but what is this ‘something’ that’s happening in China and which the whole world secretly admires? The worst of communism and the worst of capitalism have embraced. This functions economically and doesn’t have a name. Václav Havel and his philosophy have an important role in the novel. I have become friends with people connected to the dissident anthology DanDu, who in very trying circumstances are building on the work of Václav Havel. I was deeply ashamed in front of them because my country’s politicians are enchanted by China and claim it’s a stable and harmonious society. However, everything that can be conceived beneath the term brutal police state I encountered there …”