Fantasy, Prose  |  English sample translation available

Who would have thought that someone would choose a thirteen year old girl as an instrument to create a new world, a better world than our current one? But escaping from pain and suffering isn’t so simple, especially when there are people who shamelessly trample on the happiness of others while searching for their own. And would a world without evil be truly good? Children, old men, pixies, trolls, wolves, Creators, Artists of nature, all appear in Šumbera’s novel. Each character has their own unique Headworld and everything is connected by mysterious runes from the petals of extinct rune trees. This sophisticated novel is permeated with kindness and depth, leaving the reader in no doubt that it is an exceptional piece of literature, and not only within the fantasy genre. Headworld is the debut novel of a young author who is still relatively unknown, but what we do know is that Šumbera has attracted the attention of critics with his undeniable talent.

Praise

“The storytelling sometimes takes on surreal dreamlike qualities and imagery […] It is dominated by an almost automatic stream of speech which forms and tangles the world of the narrative.”

— Pavel Janoušek, Tvar 4/2016