Children’s and Young Adult
At Cross-Eyed Jim’s gunslingers’ café they don’t just serve freshly ground coffee, cakes and eggnog, but also literary treats. Ever since the librarian Boženka Oprátková set up the prison library and made life more bearable for the most hardened death-row criminals, the hearts of the villains have been moved by group readings and interpretations of literary works, and even their tastes have begun to change. This harmony, however, is disrupted by Dante Skunk Shakespeare, the greatest literary gangster of all time, shamelessly purloining all kinds of texts, from classic novels to timetables. The fight with the bookworm bandit ends in victory for the intrepid Czech librarian. Although she fails to secure the support of the hard men of the Wild West for a revolt against the Habsburgs, the cultivated spirit of their literary meetings is reflected in the character of the town. Marek Toman masterfully weaves together parody and paraphrases, paying homage to both low and high literature, as both of them have the power to set a crooked world straight: in the end the town of Sheydrem turns into Rowney.