Authors

During the ’80’s, she printed a few volumes of her poems and then started to write children’s stories, some of which were broadcast by Czech Radio (within the Hajaja and Nedělní odpolední pohádky – Sunday Afternoon Fairy-tales – cycle). Through her marriage to rock musician Daniel Kohout she was introduced to the Prague rock scene in the 80’s, an experience which influenced her later writing. After 1989, Obermannová produced several reports for Czech Television (for instance about the Moon sect, as well as Děti za mřížemi – Children Behind Bars). For several years, she was a literary advisor   for Anna Beckova’s Czech TV creative company working on several talk shows for them, such as Ženský hlas (Female Voice) with Ester Kočičková and Domácí štěstí (Domestic Bliss) with Iva Huttnerová.

Since 2003, she has worked full time as a writer, making her debut as a novelist in 1996 with an imaginative detective story Frekvence Tygra (1996) that she undercut with fairy-tales. However, it was her second novel, Deník šílené manželky (1998, Diary of a Deranged Wife), that was greeted with praise by readers and some critics and then went on to become a bestseller translated into Hungarian, Polish and a part of it into German. It was made into a film in 2000, directed by V. Křístek.

These novels as well as those she has written subsequently are partly autobiographical. She uses moments from her life as she develops her story and plot. Her main protagonists tend to be (self)-deprecating heroines, young women who reflect upon, often with bitter humour, their position in current Czech society. Obermannová deliberately exaggerates, even managing to evoke a sort of Chaplinesque slapstick while describing her characters or constructing plotlines. The world of her characters, however, is ultimately a woman’s world and one that’s acutely aware about contemporary Czech society and the growing consciousness of women concerning their role in it.

She depicts a world that focuses on relationships, in particular romantic ones. A world of dysfunctional families seen through a highly subjective female perspective that’s rich in unusual observations all of which are relevant to the psychology of all relationships. Her entertaining and witty plots, her skilful yet spare use of language, her ability to vividly evoke a scene (even in her prose, Obermannová is able to use her former interest in drama and cinema) and an underlying structure where the frustration from upsets that develop in emotional relationships is the defining force, these are the staples of Obermannová’s success especially with her women readers. It might, on the other hand, be behind the largely indifferent, almost hostile attitude of Czech critics towards her work.

Some critics (such as Josef Chuchma or Jiří Peňás) have hinted that Obermannová’s success lies in purposefully creating a kind of ‘red bookcase’ – commercially successful literary kitsch, chick-lit, or at the very least an ‘easy read’.  (Obermannová has not helped by making herself not only unpopular with Czech critics but also with feminists with the occasional flippant remark about serious social and gender-related issues). Nevertheless, it is probably the degree to which Obermannová manages to either succeed or fail in exploiting her own personal experiences, channeling and stylizing them into her work, that the credibility and authenticity of her prose can be acknowledged. At her strongest Obermannová comes close to a very particular and original feminist worldview.

It is in her  literary expression of the attitudes and opinions of a woman who either strives for or, at the very least, is forced by circumstances to be ‘emancipated’ but  constantly faces the impossibility of achieving  such an ambition in  contemporary – still patriarchal  –  Czech society,  encountering the absurdity and grotesqueness of male attitudes. Such observations are natural resources for bitter humour and self-deprecation. Underlying the personal and dramatic basis  to her work, in Deník šílené manželky (Diary of a Deranged Wife) – a depiction of a young divorced woman with two teenage daughters vis-a-vis ‘the rest of the world’ –  the narrative and plot  is enriched with the sub-plot  of  a ‘found text’ thus playing with  the distinction between ‘reality’ and ‘fiction’, a conceit which Obermannová employs in two later and  similarly successful novels: Divnovlásky (1999) and Deník šílené milenky ( , Diary of a Deranged Lover).  

The plot of the novel Nezavěšujte se (2005, Don’t Hang Yourself), with its two protagonists or opponents, appears to be the most conventional, even though Obermannová effectively uses again  her familiar skill in setting a scene and her ability to create dramatic tension.  Obermannová’s most elaborate and original  prose is probably Příručka pro neposlušné ženy (2003, Handbook For Disobedient Women) which she stylized into a  ‘handbook’ – a collection of  ‘advice’  intended for the author’s  ‘sisters’ together with  a  ‘letter to a man’. The writer interweaves some remarkable thoughts and perceptions that could be considered a serious contribution to the current gender and feminist debate, in among almost banal events. Much less based in personal experience – more truly fiction with the occasion excursion into certain stereotypes and styles – are the novels Ženské pohyby (2001, Female Movements), Matky to chtěj taky (2004, Mothers Also Want It) and Láska jako Řím (2009, Love as Rome).

Obermannová’s literary output includes two volumes of short stories – feuilletons and journalistic texts: V pěně (2007, In Froth) and Normální zázraky (2008, Ordinary Miracles). A number of these were already published in magazines or broadcast on radio (eg. in Lidové noviny, ONA DNES, Elle, Style, Radiožurnál, Marianne or Divadelní noviny). To some extent Obermannová’s many interviews could be counted as part of her literary work as she jumps on the chance to voice her opinions about her work or the relationship between her life and literature – an issue that is central to her readers – and also about current topics that are mirrored in her novels, thus providing possible clues to their interpretation.

Obermannová has also written several film and TV scripts in particular two films that were adapted from her novels: Deník šílené manželky (directed by Václav Křístek, Czech TV, 2000 – Diary of a Deranged Wife) and Divnovlásky (directed by Petr Slavík, Czech TV, 2009), as well as some TV Nova series such as Ordinace v růžové zahradě (Surgery at the Pink Garden) and Ulice (The Street). Her latest work in this area has been a sixteen part series for Czech TV Veselý starobinec (Merry Old People’s Home) that has yet to be broadcast before this profile was completed October 1, 2009.  

(Martin Machovec)