The Long Version

In her early fifties, Czech author Sylvie Novak looks back on her successful career. As she embarks on a tour to promote her book of feminist essays-which she's not convinced has captured the nature of gender inequality-her teenage daughter Judita finds her journals from her youth, discovering the intimate relationship she had with a much older writer. Judita is convinced the experience scarred her for life, whereas Novak considers her daughter's views to be ignorant and absolutist, however critical she is towards the deep-seated machismo of Eastern European dissident cultures. Meanwhile, the man she loves has found a new, younger object of desire, leaving Novak to reflect on the decline of her sex appeal. In The Long Version, we become spectators of Novak's tightrope walk, balancing between the old generation and the new, love and desire, and above all the myriad interpretations of the past. Like Hulova, Novak seeks not to lay blame or win sympathy, but to explore the shifting meanings of feminism at a time of polarized thinking and, perhaps, discover a path towards reconciliation.

Review

“Petra Hůlová has written a book of disillusionment and reconciliation with passionate feminism, with a particular focus on the body’s physiology.”
— Petr Fischer, literary critic and columnist

About the Author

Petra Hůlová is a fiction writer and the recipient of several literary awards, including Czechia’s highest literary recognitions—the Magnesia Litera, the Josef Škvorecký Award and the Jiří Orten Award. Hůlová lives in Prague, where she is a regular commentator on current events for the Czech press. She studied language, culture and anthropology at universities in Prague, Her ten novels and three plays have been translated into thirteen languages. Her socio-critical satire The Movement, published by World Editions, continues to challenge sexual norms. The Long Version is her latest feminist novel, asking important questions about the #MeToo movement.

Alex Zucker is an award-winning translator from the Czech who has translated novels by Zuzana Říhová, Magdaléna Platzová, Jáchym Topol, Bianca Bellová, Petra Hůlová, J. R. Pick, Tomáš Zmeškal, Josef Jedlička, Heda Margolius Kovály, Patrik Ouředník and Miloslava Holubová.