A novel about the photographer František Drtikol.
Have you ever wondered what a story written by a beam of light would be like? First, the story would be ordinary but the course of events extraordinary; second, its hero would be a photographer, a guardian of light; third, naturally it would be full of shadow. So who was František Drtikol?
Prose
A dandy from a small mining town, a world-famous photographer whose business went bankrupt, a master of the nude who never had much luck with women, a mystic and a Buddhist who believed in communism; a man whose many contradictions showed outwardly and were synthesized inwardly. The conception of Jan Němec’s extensive novel is very unusual for contemporary Czech prose – fresco-like, it is an artistic and spiritual Bildungsroman that covers over half a century, bringing to life the silver mines of Příbram, Jugendstil Munich and First Republic Bohemianism, with naked models wandering along the lines and light merging unobserved with knowledge…
Information about the original Czech edition
Other selected published translations (5)
История на светлината Bulgarian
Historia światła Polish
A fény története Hungarian
Storia della luce Italian
Una historia de la luz Spanish