Radka Denemarková is a novelist, screenwriter and translator. She is one of the most widely translated contemporary Czech authors and has been awarded the Magnesia Litera Award three times.

The editors of Asymptote, who selected the excerpt for The Guardian to mark International Women’s Day, describe Příspěvek k dějinám radosti (A Contribution to the History of Joy) as “a passionate indictment of all forms of violence against women everywhere, spanning the past 70 years of history.”

Read the excerpt here.