Dalibor Vácha
Dalibor Vácha (b. 1980) is a Czech historian and author of fifteen bestselling novels. His prose is mostly dedicated to the great wars of the 20th century and the individual human destinies within them. He focuses mainly on the stories of everyday life in the Czechoslovak legions and the inter-war period. However, he has not forgotten the fantastic and has written a post-apocalyptic novel.
Vilda
September 2023, 320 pages
The story of the elegant dancer, boxer and pilot Vilda Jakš
The novel tells the story of Vilda Jakš, a Czechoslovak middleweight boxing champion who lived the glamorous life of a celebrity in Prague and Paris in the 1930s. When Czechoslovakia was mobilised in 1938, he refused to stay in France and returned to do his military service. After Germany occupied his homeland, he fled the newly established Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and, after an adventurous journey, served in a Czechoslovak unit in France, joining the 311 Czechoslovak Squadron of the Royal Air Force. There he became a gunner, which eventually proved fatal.
