Literary fiction, Prose

Petra Soukupová is one of the most successful young Czech authors, consistently popular with readers and critics alike. Under the Snow, is caustic, ironic and highly readable prose about those universal themes — family and relationships. Soukupová is succinct and considers her words carefully. Her latest novel begins with a seemingly ordinary situation: one winter day three sisters get into a car and head for their parents’ place, where they will celebrate their father’s birthday. Daughters, a baby, a dog, an iPad and a hangover. Only a few miles into the drive the atmosphere grows tense and at this stage the sisters are unaware that more unpleasantness awaits them at their parents’ home…

Soukupová’s previous books have been published in Italian, Polish, Slovene, Bulgarian, Croatian and Bosnian and a Polish translation of Under the Snow is in preparation. Under the Snow has already sold 15,000 copies (February 2016).

Praise

“By combining spoken words and thoughts and by switching characters — each of the sisters is a narrator — the author turns an ordinary story into a thrilling read. Every conflict — arguments about who sits where, a stop at a petrol station, changing a tyre — is seen from multiple perspectives.”

— Magdalena Čechlovská, Hospodářské noviny