Laureate of the State Prize for Literature in 2011, Daniela Hodrová (1946) is a literary scholar whose theoretical research prepares the ground for her fiction. Her style is an ingenious stream of storytelling from which characters and places, and the personal histories of authors, living and dead, emerge into the magical yet harrowing genius loci of Prague. The key to her writing is spontaneity: “There is no primary intention, stylish procedure or pre-fabricated composition,” she says, “and it’s not the fruit of ‘being learned’ but the inspiration and experience.” Her novels have been translated into dozens of languages and her previously published book, Chvála schoulení, is a collection of twenty-eight “essays on the poetics of transience”.