Free. Book here. Doors open 6pm.

We are delighted to work with the Consulate General of the Czech Republic in Manchester and the Czech Literary Centre and tinvite you warmly to a very special evening with Czech writer Bianca Bellová and translator Alex Zucker on March 20, 2024, from 6 pm to 8 pm. The moderator Alexandra Büchler will guide us through the reading and discussion about the EBRD Literature Prize–winning novel The Lake.

The Lake is an award winning novel. A fishing village at the end of the world. A lake that is drying up and, ominously, pushing out its banks. The men have vodka, the women troubles, the children eczema to scratch at. Born into this unforgiving environment, Nami, a young boy, embarks on a journey with nothing but a bundle of nerves, a coat that was once his grandfather’s and the vague idea of searching for his mother, who disappeared from his life at a young age. To uncover the greatest mystery of his life, he must sail across and walk around the lake and finally dive to its bottom.

The Lake is a raw account of life in a devastated land and the harsh, primitive circumstances under which people fight to survive. A dystopian page-turner about the coming of age of a young hero, which won the 2017 EU Prize for Literature.

BIANCA BELLOVÁ (b. 1970) is a Czech translator, interpreter and writer with Bulgarian roots. Her novel Mrtvý muž (Dead Man, 2011) received widespread critical acclaim and has been translated into German. Her latest novel, Jezero (The Lake, 2016), won the EU Prize for Literature and will be published in more than ten languages.