In six allegorical short stories, the author employs various folklore literary genres – from legend and fable to arabesque – to depict the problems of today.

Literary fiction, Short stories

Once upon a time… The Virgin Mary died in Warsaw. Poachers slit the bellies of grouse. Masquerade boots were made from lion paws. Persian gates were closed to caravans. The Full Moon lent to hares so that they could buy furs. The magician Rye crowed over Prague. The Death of Old Masha presents the reader with romantic illusion. Thomas the Apostle warns at the outset: “Truth is a story hidden behind legend.” “The book is ultimately an experiment and a play with genre. It is an attempt to talk about the present as though it happened long ago and has left behind only a remnant of myth. Or perhaps it’s the other way around: an attempt to find a remnant of myth in the present,” says Vratislav Maňák.

Vratislav Maňák (1988) is the author of the short story collection Šaty z igelitu (Polythene Clothes, 2011), for which he won the Jiří Orten Award. In 2016, he published the novel Rubikova kostka (Rubik’s Cube), which was nominated for the 2017 EU Prize for Literature. He works as a journalist and teaches at the Faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University in Prague.