The aim of this article is a comparative analysis of the works of two important Central European women writers, Radka Denemarková and Olga Tokarczuk, with a particular focus on their novels Hodiny z olova (2018) and Empuzjon. Horror przyrodoleczniczy (2022). The introduction juxtaposes the literary agendas and goals that both authors set for their novels, as well as the extra-literary ways of communicating with the readers. The introduction is followed by an analysis of the formal characteristics of their novels, which elude clear genre classification. The plot construction of the works corresponds with the subject matter, which acquires the character of a diagnosis that opens up a discussion on the condition of contemporary societies: Czech, Polish, European and even Chinese. In Hodiny z olova, Denemarková juxtaposes contemporary Beijing and Prague, she asks about values and human rights in (post)totalitarian societies. Tokarczuk, on the other hand, uses the metaphor of tuberculosis to ask about other human ailments related to identity and co-existence with the natural world.
The article is concentrated on the Czech post-war literature, especially on the Czech treatment of the theme regarding returns from concentration camps in the novels written in the second half of 20th century and in contemporary literature. The presented novels, thematizing the mentioned topic, are viewed as representations of those days discourses shaped by the “course of history”. Therefore, the article follows variation of the theme as well as the modification of heros in connection with the transformation of discourses, and tries to describe the reasons of the changing.
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