Prose

Darda completes Dousková’s free trilogy following her bestsellers Hrdý Budžes (also  famous as a theatre play starring the excellent Barbora Hrzánová) and Oněgin byl Rusák (Onegin Was a Russian, play directed by Jan Borna). Time has passed and thus we now encounter the teenager Helena, growing up in the grim reality of the Husák era, as a married mother of two children. Even though the period setting has changed, it doesn’t seem like a better world. The Normalization predicament has been replaced with the mid-life crisis. This tragicomic story is set in present times. Darda once again doesn’t lack the  seeming lightness of the narrative and Dousková’s verbal and situational humour. Nevertheless, this is a painful laugh.