A detective/romance novel centring around a melting glacier in Greenland.

Literary fiction  |  English sample translation available

Although the story begins with an encounter between a mysterious girl in black – a microbiologist called Klára – and a young journalist called Rosli – a man prone to drink – in the Prague Botanical Garden in Trója, the main character of this novel is a Greenlandic glacier. When a new greenhouse is opened, by chance the young journalist finds out that this is the result of embezzlement. The reader is introduced to a flighty musician called Valdemar, a thriller-writer named Nina and other curious individuals. In a remarkable story arc, the two main protagonists, who already have a romantic connection, find themselves on a scientific expedition in Greenland – a glacier is melting and who knows what is concealed within its depths. But what the pseudonym A. Gravensteen conceals is a first-time novelist whose romance-cum-detective novel with its sophisticated parallel construction, self-mocking narrator, varied narrative world and rich use of language was being hotly tipped even before it came out.

Praise:

“One of the most remarkable Czech novels of recent years.”

—Petr A. Bílek, literary historian and theorist

“Even re-reading it was an exceptional experience, thanks in part to the linguistic skills of A. Gravensteen, but mainly because the author has created a vivid fictional world that the reader is reluctant to leave, an impression which is reinforced by the book’s ending.”

—iLiteratura

About the author:

A. Gravensteen is the name on an apartment door. Who wrote this novel behind it remains a mystery.