A book of two storylines that eventually interconnect, together with the fates of two individuals who could not be more distant from one another – a father and daughter.

Literary fiction  |  English sample translation available

Alena Mornštajnová, a novelist who excels in capturing the complexity of human relationships, brings us another sweeping family history bound up with the 20th-century history of the Czech lands. This time she focuses on the difficulties of the father-daughter relationship and how it develops. In the narrative prose Years of Silence this is illustrated using the example of an introverted girl called Bohdana who lives with her surly father and the kind-hearted, submissive Běla – it is hardly surprising that this combination gives rise to tension. The novel’s chapters, speakers and time frames alternate – the parallel story of the staunch communist Svatopluk Žák, Bohdana’s father, is an example of the socialist illusion of a planned future. This powerful, intimate novel with an enigmatic atmosphere culminates at the moment when the two storylines intersect.

Alena Mornštajnová (1963) is a Czech writer and translator. She graduated in English and Czech from Ostrava University’s Faculty of Arts. She lives in Valašské Meziříčí. Her debut novel Slepá mapa (Blind Map) was published in 2013 and was nominated for the 2014 Czech Book Prize. Her second novel, Hotýlek (The Little Hotel), was published in 2015. 2017 saw the publication of her third novel, Hana, which has been her most successful novel to date and has been translated into several languages. Her first book for children, Strašidýlko stráša (Stráša the Little Ghost), with illustrations by Galina Miklínová, was also very popular with readers. Her novel, Tiché roky (Years of Silence, 2019), has confirmed her position as a bestselling author, a novelist with perhaps the broadest readership base in the Czech Republic, whose breakthrough into the world of established Czech writers came relatively late, when she was already middle-aged, but was all the more decisive for it.