When in 2000 Rok perel (The Year of Pearls) was first published, it immediately became a sensation. A novelistic lesbian coming-out attracted the interest of media and readers who would otherwise remain completely ignorant of the author. A lesbian relationship endows the novel with an ingredient of arousal hitherto unknown in the Czech literary canon, at least not this explicitly. When Lucie meets the provocative Magda, her life collapses to an extent she hasn’t even begun to imagine, and which parallels those in the famous cases of Mann’s Professor Unrat or Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert. Her coming out brings her no relief — euphoric moments are quickly followed by hangover, the change in sexual orientation becoming not only a given, but also a burden in the relationships with many other people with whom Lucie’s life has been connected. Brabcová constructs her story almost like a thriller with a secret: gradually taking shape and gaining tempo, escalating into a dramatic finale…
More information in Italian here.