Literary fiction

The Elf is a double novel with two stories side by side in one book that resemble two elements of nature – water and fire, which recasts the visible. Or rather are they two rivers fused into one stream? A book about the manifestations of irresistible love and sophisticated violence; the predetermination of human existence by the family we’re born into or an ideology we immerse ourselves in; a society that suppresses the weak and vulnerable. The torment of these characters epitomizes the ailment of our era and it seems like the elves are the source of this agony.

The Elf freely draws on the author’s previous books The Devil by the Nose (A já pořád kdo to tluče, 2005) and Money From Hitler (Peníze od Hitlera, 2006) and is the culmination of Denemarková‘s trilogy about the 20th century in Central Europe.

Read an English excerpt here.

Praise

“Hard-hitting and poetic, the novel is a passionate condemnation of a society that renounces the less fortunate, pushing them to the margins as if they suffered from a contagious disease.”

— Julia Sherwood, Literary Hub