Jiří Hájíček

Football Diaries

Fotbalové deníky Fotbalové deníky
Fotbalové deníky
Host, 2007
Foreign rights:
Dana Blatná Literary Agency
http://www.dbagency.cz
blatna@dbagency.cz

Men come from the Mars, women originated on Venus – this opinion is quite common. Honza Převorský is a man in his forties. He owns a good car, is a little bit overweight and football is his passion. He believes two football elevens exist – one made up of men and the other of women. They do battle with each other constantly and their fights can be compared to the English league when it comes to harshness. In the new work of fiction by Jiří Hájíček these two worlds meet and there is no winner.

In June 2006, just as the football World Cup is beginning in Germany, instead of journeying around the German stadiums as originally planned, due to a strange coincidence Honza finds himself in a car with a 19-year old girl. He has known her for just a week but he is much closer to her than he thinks at first. Instead of German motorways, there are minor roads in need of repair; instead of hotels, there are dusty, blue-collar lodging houses or and sleepovers on the airbed. Simona and Honza’s curious summer trip seems to be endless, going round and round in circles, bordered by the results of the matches of the Czech national team, with their hopes and disappointments. In this “football road movie” the feelings of a quadragenarian tackle more than the game of football. This man seemingly lacks nothing, but still he suffers from feelings of loneliness and emptiness.

In this novella, in contrast to his successful novel Rustic Baroque / Selský baroko, Jiří Hájíček does not engage with weighty historical issues. But readers will find many things typical of the world of his rural writing here.

Fotbalové deníky
Host, 2007
Foreign rights:
Dana Blatná Literary Agency
http://www.dbagency.cz
blatna@dbagency.cz