Vilda

September 2023, 320 pages

The novel tells the story of Vilda Jakš, a Czechoslovak middleweight boxing champion who lived the glamorous life of a celebrity in 1930s Prague and Paris. When Czechoslovakia mobilized in 1938, he refused to stay in France and returned to enter military service. After Germany occupied his home country, 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 Britain’s Royal Air Force. There, he became an air gunner, which eventually proved fatal to him.