The Czech author Radka Denemarková on her China novel “Lead Hours”, difficult times for democracy and how things can continue after political turning points.
Interviewed by
Victoria Grossman
The 54-year-old writer Radka Denemarková describes her novel “Lead Hours” as her life’s work. The setting is today’s China. The protagonists are a Czech programmer, a 1000-year-old cat and a writer. East and West, past and existing dictatorships meet: the years of so-called normalization in the Czechoslovakia after the Prague Spring, the leaden times, and totalitarian China, where, from Denemarková’s point of view, the worst of capitalism and the worst of communism come together . The book has now been published in German and in 17 other languages. Denemarková is a few minutes late for a conversation in the cozy old town hotel – the train! – and apologizes, she has to collect herself first. It turns out that this is not necessary, she knows exactly what she wants to say. The literary scholar speaks German.