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[ excerpt ]
Czech writing
also by the author:
The Sufferings of
Prince Sternenhoch
about the translator:
Marek Tomin was born in Prague and grew up in England, where his family found refuge after being exiled in 1980 by the Communist regime. A graduate of Oxford University, he lives
in Prague where he works as a freelance translator, journalist, documentary producer, and contemporary art curator. His translations include Of Kids & Parents
by Emil Hakl, Pavel Z.'s Time Is a Mid-Night Scream, and the lyrics of the Plastic People of the Universe.
Read a profile here.
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glorious nemesis
by Ladislav Klima
translated from the Czech by Marek Tomin
Klima's intense inner life and complex mental state is reflected in his peculiar writings. The eccentricity of style and occasional violence found in his prose were intended
to convey the deep conflicts attending his thought processes. Set in the Tyrol, Glorious Nemesis is a balladic tale that explores the metaphysics of
love and death. In a town in the Tyrol (inspired by Klima's extended stay in Landeck) Sider, a man of twenty-eight, is confronted by a giant mountain named Deer's Head and an ancient,
single-story house standing at the end of a small lane under a high, black cliff. Out one day on a hike, he encounters two women who will mark his fate: the elder Errata and the younger Orea,
dressed in blue. From this point on Sider is on a quest for the All, for absolute Desire, and to connect with eternity. Willing to risk his entire fortune and sanity, he succumbs to his dreams
and hallucinations as Orea, or her doppelganger, becomes for him the manifestation of Jungian anima. In homage to the goddess Nemesis, Sider becomes initiated into
the mysteries of life and death.
Written around 1919 and last revised by Klima in 1926, Glorious Nemesis was published posthumously in 1932. This is the first English translation.
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ISBN 978 80 86264 39 4
approx. 130 pp.
140 x 200 mm
softcover with flaps
fiction: novella
publication in 2010
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