Hana Andronikova – författare

The Sound of the Sundial is the internationally acclaimed novel by Czech author Hana Andronikova, told over the course of a single day and night, but spanning three continents and much of the twentieth century. In this intimate and affecting love story about a German-Czech builder and his Jewish wife, Andronikova sends her readers on a captivating journey through time and memory, from the Czech town of Zlín in the 1920s to Calcutta in the 1930s, Theresienstadt and Auschwitz during World War II, Toronto in the decades afterward, and finally into modern-day Denver, Colorado. It is at once a deeply personal narrative and an homage to the lost relationship of the Czech, German, and Jewish peoples. In 2002, The Sound of the Sundial received the Czech Republic's prestigious Magnesia Litera Award in the category of Best New Discovery, just a few years before its author died of cancer at the age of 44. It is making its world premiere appearance in English here.

Hana Andronikova's second, and unfortunately last novel, was published nine years after the success of her first bookThe Sound of the Sundial.Andronikova herself admitted that inHeaven Has No Ground, the character of Ama, a self-proclaimed "bio-gal" and "alter-nativist" is somewhat autobiographical as she tries come to terms with the death of her father and with her own cruel diagnosis of breast cancer. Through this intimate story Ama records her battle with the terrible disease. But it is not one that takes place in a hospital bed, but rather on journey with a backpack that leads to the shamans of the Amazon jungle in Peru, to the native Americans of the Nevada Desert, and then finally to the Middle East. Andronikova doesn't shy way from expressing that feeling of raw anxiety upon her return home when she ultimately faces the decision to accept modern medical treatment or not. But the book is much more than a young woman's battle with cancer, it is a witty and colorful narrative of searching for oneself and accepting one's fate. Andronikova does this with a unique style filled with raspy metaphors, a melody of language, and with an a associative string of playful words that borders surrealism.