Martin Čepa
Martin Čepa (*1990, Jindřichův Hradec) studied Biomedical Instrumentation and Methods at the Czech Technical University in Prague. He currently works as a research scientist at a biotechnological company and lives in Letohrad. The Bell (Zvon) is his debut, and this year the Grada publishing house will release his next manuscript, Tajemství zámku Budka.
Richard Fischer Jr. was born in 1968 in Tábor. Fischer has been a freelance artist ever since, working in illustrations, comics, applied painting, interior design, and textile prints with his family project, Domácí dílna. He also creates illustrations for magazines and books. His first comic book, „Rváčov,“ based on a script by Džian Baban, was published in 2020. Fischer often draws inspiration from the gloomy, forgotten, or vanished places of old Prague.
The Bell
September 2024, 288 pages
Available material: English synopsis, Image sample
Children of the Present and Prague at the End of World War II
This exciting, adventurous story begins in an apartment building in Prague’s Vinohrady. A group of friends hears a strange whistling from somewhere above and sets off to find the source. In the attic, they discover scientific notes from a certain Dr. Schneider and, more importantly, the source of the whistling: a huge, black, bell-shaped stone. The bell has a crack large enough for a person to crawl inside, and that’s exactly what three of the kids do, leaving the fearful Eda outside. Inside, the three friends become unwilling participants in an unusual physical phenomenon. The bell transports them to April 1945, and they must find Dr. Schneider to return to their own time. It won’t be easy—the world war is still ongoing, and a maniacal Gestapo officer known as The Butcher is on their trail…
