Literary fiction  |  English sample translation available

The last instalment in a trilogy on the lives of women, motherhood and profound guilt.

Nine-year-old Eliška, the main character in the novel Reconstruction, the final part of Viktorie Hanišová’s loose trilogy, spends her childhood in a dark villa with her reclusive aunt Leonie. Eliška’s trauma is almost unimaginable: her mother murdered her younger brother before committing suicide, and both bodies were discovered by the surviving daughter. Eliška knows nothing about the background to the tragedy or about her father, and when she reaches adulthood she decides to look for answers.

Viktorie Hanišova’s third novel about a complicated motherhood and a dark past unfolds around the theme of the lure of darkness and the abyss, the complex figure of the mother/murderer and the classic motif of guilt.

Viktorie Hanišová (1980) is from Prague and graduated in English and German studies at Charles University. She translates and teaches foreign languages. She made her debut as a writer in 2015 with the well-received novel Anežka (Agnes) about the dysfunctional relationship between a mother and her adopted daughter, as well as hidden racism and stereotypes. This was followed in 2018 by the novel Houbařka (The Mushroom Picker) about childhood trauma and domestic violence. The novel Rekonstrukce (Reconstruction, 2019) completes the loose trilogy of novels connected by the theme of motherhood. Viktorie Hanišová’s books have been translated into five languages including German and Spanish.