Pavla Horáková
Pavla Horáková (b. 1974) is a Prague-based author, radio journalist and literary translator. She has received two translation awards, having translated over 20 books from English and Serbian, such as novels by Kurt Vonnegut, Saul Bellow and Iain Banks. Her published works of fiction include a detective trilogy for young adults: The Secret of the Sexton Beetles (2010, 2016), The Sexton Beetles under the Castle (2011, 2016) and The Sexton Beetles and the Gravediggers (2012, 2018). In 2018, she co-authored the novella Johana (alongside Alena Scheinostová and Zuzana Dostálová) and published her first novel for adults, A Theory of Strangeness (Teorie podivnosti, 2018). She was awarded the most prestigious literary award in Czechia (Magnesia Litera). She has been working as a reporter for Czech Radio since 2001. With her co-host Jiří Kamen wrote and presented a twenty-seven part series titled Field Post (2015) highlighting the memoirs, journals and correspondence of Czech soldiers for the centenary of WW1. The pair also edited two books on that subject, entitled An Order Came Through from the Emperor (2015) and Zum Befehl, Lieutenant, Sir (2018). Rights to her winning novel A Theory of Strangeness have been sold to 12 countries so far.
THE MOST PRESTIGIOUS LITERARY AWARD (BEST WORK OF FICTION)
The Theory of Strangeness
October 2018, 360 pages
Available material: English sample, German sample, French sample
Rights sold to:
Poland (Stara szkola), Italy (Miraggi Edizioni), Bulgaria (Ergo), Macedonia (Makedonika Litera), Egypt (Al Kotob Khan), Spain (Reino de Cordelia), Slovenia (Sanje), Hungary (Metropolis Media), Romania (Editura Casa Cartii de Stiinta), Croatia (Hena), Serbia (Srebrno drvo)
The brilliantly described journey of a young academic-intellectual in search of freedom and the meaning of life
The narrator, Ada Sabová, a young academic from the “Institute of Interdepartmental Human Studies”, is in many ways typical (though not stereotypical) of modern intellectuals trying to balance their personal life with their career. She has been through many things in both of them and so is guilty of a certain cynicism, or rather of an informed, sarcastic view of the world, the people around her, and herself. While searching for a colleague’s lost son, she notes the apparent coincidences around her, behind which, however, she senses a regularity and interdependence. She looks for an overarching definition of all these phenomena in her “theory of strangeness” and discovers that she cannot grasp the infinite complexity of the world through reason alone. And while the society around her clings on increasingly tightly to vacuous rules, Ada abandons their structures one by one and sets out towards freedom.
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“Someone once said that a great work of fiction astonishes the reader by the ability to express something, they’ve until now believed to be inexpressible – something at which Pavla Horáková excels.”
– Aktuálně.cz
“Theory of Strangeness is the product of great literary talent combined with a brilliant intellect and something we could perhaps call the feminine mystique. Pavla Horáková is a rare bird among contemporary Czech writers: educated, witty, sophisticated… and a little mysterious. Just like her new novel, Theory of Strangeness, which Echo magazine has called the decade’s smartest piece of Czech fiction.”
– Echo Weekly
“The author has the uncanny ability to draw the reader in by describing seemingly random, trivial incidents and phenomena. At a second glance, we realize that these little pieces of trivia, delivered with extraordinary stylistic brilliance, take us straight to the book’s underlying message. With disarming irony and a naturally acerbic wit, Horáková manages to express things that anyone who has ever experienced moments of introspection will be intimately familiar with.”
– David Lancz, Týdeník Instinkt
“Pavla Horáková has written a truly great novel. Theory of Strangeness is both sophisticated and bold, carefully structured, strangely alluring and soul-searching.”
– Ondřej Horák, Playboy
From the sample translation
“How often had I heard those words lately? How often had I said them myself? Is there a specific point in life when friends start parting with a “hang in there” rather than a simple “bye” or “take care”? Or was I simply so overwhelmed by my current misery that I saw trouble wherever I looked? Perhaps the notorious midlife crisis had decided to show up way before I’d actually managed to acquire all that wisdom and wealth that was supposed to come with middle age. You can act young and dress young, you can try to put off adulthood and all its obligations and commitments as hard as you can, but you can’t really trick time. My list of losses was constantly growing.”