Playing Wolf
- Auteur: Zuzana Říhová (Tsjechië)
- Soort boek: Tsjechische roman, horrorroman
- Origineel: Cestou špendlíků nebo jehel (2021)
- Engelse vertaling: Alex Zucker
- Uitgever: Catapult
- Verschijnt: 1 oktober 2025
- Omvang: 288 pagina’s
- Uitgave: gebonden boek / ebook
- Prijs: $ 27,00 / $ 14,99
- Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris
Zuzana Říhová Playing Wolf review en recensie
- “Playing Wolf is a fascinating combination of rural creepiness and gruesome fairy tale imagery. Zuzana Říhová’s prose, beautifully translated from the Czech by Alex Zucker, swirls with thoughts, paranoia, dread, and disappointment. You will cringe at the body horror, the wrong turns, the failure of the characters to see the danger before them, to escape the fairy tale they’ve inevitably fallen into. Gripping as it is harrowing!” (Richard Mirabella, author of Brother & Sister Enter the Forest)
- “What starts as an attempt at healing via nature and small-town values ends up closer to a Bohemian Chainsaw Massacre, albeit without the chainsaws … Zucker also deftly captures the playfulness of Říhová’s text . . . These types of subtle decisions derive from instinct and experience as much as fluency, and they are part of what makes Zucker such a premier translator … You’ll be both delighted and disturbed.” (Cory Oldweiler, On the Seawall)
Flaptekst van de roman van de Tsjechische schrijfster Zuzana Říhová
A couple deep in the woods of a failing marriage find themselves the unwitting victims of a kidnapping plot after they move to a mysterious village in this distinctly poetic and disturbingly elegant horror novel.
Husband and wife Bohumil and Bohumila, together with their son, move from Prague to a remote village with the hopes of salvaging their marriage. In the searing summer heat, they try to fit in with the villagers, only to be met with hostile stares and evasive lies. Each night, the couple hears what they suspect to be a large animal wandering around their cottage—an impression that oddly corresponds to the mysterious flyers found at the local watering hole regarding a wolfen fairytale. As inexplicable coincidences begin piling up, it’s clear something sinister is afoot.
After a drunken night out, Bohumil and Bohumila come home to find the house empty: their son is gone. After three days of searching, they find the villagers in festive costumes gathered outside their cottage. Is it a bizarre game, or some perverse, folkloric ritual? Are Bohumil and Bohumila in danger? And what has happened to their son?
A dark social tale that slides inexorably towards psychological horror, Playing Wolf is a modern ballad of human destiny and discovering the animal in each of us.
Zuzana Říhová was born in 1981. She is a Czech writer and scholar. She studied Czech and comparative literature at Charles University in Prague and is the author of a poetry collection, Pustím si tě do domu (I’ll Let You in My House) (Dauphin, 2016), and a novella, Evička (Little Eve) (Dauphin, 2018), among other works.