Ratajský les

In January 1952 the body of Anna Felbabová, a communist official and hard-line champion of collectivisation, is found shot in the Rataje forest. The red justice system answers without mercy and propaganda turns the killing into a show case of anti-state terror, forcing the region's farmers into the collective. Building on these real events, the novel weaves three strands: a revenge in 1952 that turns by bad luck into an unplanned murder; the case seen six years later through the eyes of the man who drives the trial and uses it to destroy a rival in love; and the recent past, when young anti-communist radicals set out to settle scores with those who helped crush the resistance. Half a century on, the forest awaits its last victim.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

262 pages in the original

Genres

Historical, Politics, Crime (assigned by AI)

Set in

Czechia, 1952, 1958 and recent years

First published

2016 by Pistorius & Olšanská

Author's age

51 when first published

ISBN

9788087855546 (original)