Czech Books Petra Hůlová: a child’s mixed memories of the grown-ups’ revolution
A couple of years ago in this programme we spoke to the young Czech novelist Petra Hůlová about her epic novel of life in contemporary Mongolia, “Paměť mojí babičce“ – which translates literally as “Memory for My Grandmother”. The book has just been published to considerable acclaim in English translation by Northwestern University Press under the title “All This Belongs to Me”. Since writing it back in 2002, Petra has been far from idle, publishing no less than four further novels that take us from inside the mind of an ageing prostitute to the steppes of distant Siberia. At the moment she is putting the finishing touches on another novel, this time with a theme closer to home, spanning the years just before and after Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution. With the twentieth anniversary of the revolution just days away, I joined Petra Hůlová in the Café Louvre, just above the spot in Prague’s Národní třída (National Street), where it all began on November 17 1989. It was here that the police violently suppressed a huge student demonstration, causing a wave of protest across the country that eventually brought down the regime. So I began by asking Petra about her memories of that time as a ten-year-old child.
Národní třída, Prague
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