Two Owls Flying Low

May 2024, 224 pages

While patrolling a landfill, elderly security guard Nejedlý finds a little girl. No one is looking for her; no one knows where she came from or who her parents are. She is given the name Alžběta and put in the care of a widow named Viola, whose five sons have long since left home. And so begins the magical story that unravels more than just the mystery of Alžběta’s origins. The little foundling becomes the catalyst of the town’s long-forgotten secrets. In part poem, part whodunit, and part dream, the story takes place in a vague timelessness where things, houses, and places play as essential a role as the characters. Little Alžběta grows older in the panopticon and slowly uncovers the history of her loved ones. But is it possible to dig into someone else’s past and avoid one’s own?