Summary
Anna Bolava: Before the Flood
With the novel "Before the Flood", Anna Bolava concludes a loosely bound trilogy about the fates of unusual heroes in the small Czech town of Rečovice. Hana Strnadova, the heroine we met in the previous novel, is more attracted to the underwater world than interpersonal relations in the city, and her villa on the river bank is visited by an unknown guest who, by all accounts, does not belong to the earthly world. Dr. Ratka Borski arrives in Rečovice by train to visit her patient and feels the collision of a somewhat naive and idyllic idea of life in a small town with harsh reality. Anonymous letters arrive at the sawmill of the Vavra family and the days begin to taste like rotten fish. Anna Bolava dedicates this novel, in which she revives myths about water creatures, to rivers and all her creatures. The importance of the river has now reached its peak, and it is she who plays one of the central roles in solving the complicated destinies of the heroes. The river lives its own life. After a long drought, the water level unexpectedly rises and returns to the inhabitants what they have unkindly thrown into it during the year. Will the coming flood bring only destruction, or will the heroes of Anna Bolava replace the omnipresent smell of rotten fish with even a hint of a happy ending?
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