The true story of a Marian miracle in the Czech borderlands reveals the limits of mutual trust and faith, as well as the hardships faced by strong women within the patriarchal society of the late nineteenth century.

Literary fiction

Writer and screenwriter Sára Zeithammerová’s second novel was inspired by a Marian miracle in Suchý Důl in the Broumov region. In the late nineteenth century, the Virgin Mary was said to have appeared several times to fourteen-year-old Kristina. The author uses this historically documented event to construct a convincing fictional world populated by ambiguous characters. The novel’s momentum is driven by an unusually chosen unreliable narrator—Kristina’s widowed mother Aloisie. Although she is initially sceptical of her daughter’s vision, the crowds of pilgrims streaming into the village come to her inn’s rescue during a time of particular hardship. The two prominent female figures repeatedly come up against the limits of patriarchal society. Conventional yet fresh in its storytelling, the novel rests on the solid foundations of thorough historical research and thoughtful composition. With a creeping sense of unease, the author captures the intense relationship between mother and daughter, the shifting mood within the village community, and the tension between faith as an intimate experience and a source of social pressure.

Sára Zeithammerová (1997) is a scriptwriter and novelist. She was born in the USA but has spent most of her life in Prague. She graduated in English and Spanish for Intercultural Communication at Charles University, and scriptwriting and dramaturgy at FAMU. She wrote the script for the mini-series Five Years (2022), which was nominated for a Czech Lion and the Czech Film Critics’ Award. Her first novel, Stitches (2022), was shortlisted for the Jiří Orten Award. She regularly contributes to the Czech Short Story series. The Saint is her second novel.