Two young girls and two elderly women find themselves in a situation, in which they make a new start – in Brazil and in Prague. They try to get to the bottom of how history played with their lives and loves. It can have the character of letters, secretly crossing the ocean, but also of cowboy-like adventures in the jungle. The novel tells the tale of the emotions and feelings of émigrés, who return to the place they have left, of the confusion of their children and of the healing power of new friendship. The protagonists of the novel live in the wilderness of the big city, herds bulls on grass-land surrounded by the jungle and are trying to find their roots in the Czech republic. They reconstruct how their ancestors fled and also how they have fled themselves. The book addresses the question if it nowadays, when one so easily can go from one country to another, still is important to have a home and a person who is able to listen.
Pilátová shows with this novel her great ability of telling stories, and she does that in such an attractive style, that before you know you have finished the book.
Praise
“Four women, one man, two continents, two generations, two cultures and two dictatorships — Markéta Pilátová has included quite a lot in her debut novel [The Yellow Eyes Will Lead You Home]. Yet it all works well together due to the author’s skilled use of language.”
—Sabine Berking, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Selected published translations (6)
Wir müssen uns irgendwie ähnlich sein German
Żółte oczy prowadzą do domu Polish
Mijn ogen leiden je naar huis Dutch
Mis ojos te llevarán a casa Spanish
Жълтите очи водят към дома Bulgarian