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Why did you choose the characters of Božena Němcová, George Sandová and John D. Rockefeller to interpret the phenomena of the 19th century?
I needed not only symbolic characters, but above all their home countries. Austria-Hungary as our space, France, where the Enlightenment and original democratic ideas emerged, and the USA, where oil appeared and the first oligarchs who developed brutal capitalism and nationalism. It was also important to me to portray the position of women at that time. Compared to the equally courageous Božena Němcová, George Sand had the advantage that she came from a wealthy family.
Basically, I included multiple novels in each novel. Chocolate Blood is prose full of themes that we live today and that date back to the 19th century. This era has overwhelmed us with a lot of nonsense, such as extreme nationalism, mass society, ruthless industrialization, plundering the planet or reducing man to a consumer. I also thought about the Czech language.
What do you think it means to be Czech?
I would say it’s because we’re wrapped up in a national box and believe we’re the most important in the world. It’s about the inferiority complex of a small nation, a small language, which is particularly dangerous in a globalized world where everything is connected to everything else.
We constantly feel like we are a buffer between East and West. That’s why we always cling to the bigger and stronger country as if we have no self-respect. We need an external enemy, back then it was Vienna, now Brussels. But we are Europe.
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Bozena Němcová was used as a symbol of national recovery, you said you wanted to change this image. What bothered you about previous interpretations of her personality?
I wanted to remember her from the ground up and give her back to the world. It always bothered me that no one noticed her true creative talent. Patriots used her for their political goals, so she could not write freely. As she grew older, she became more and more in their way because she uncompromisingly held a different opinion. They basically starved them to death.
After her death she was abused by ideologies, the communists turned our woman Božena Němcová into a writer. Today’s generation emphasizes how many lovers they have had. Furthermore, it is always said that violent Germanization took place in Bohemia, while in Josef Němec’s household there was violent Czechization. In addition to Czech, she also had a preference for German. But the language is not important, in art what matters is artistic commitment and inner honesty, and these know no restrictions or boundaries.
I also see the problem in the fact that it was never placed in an international context. And also how she complains endlessly about being a bad wife, housewife and mother. I have never in my life read a text about a world-renowned author that decided whether he could cook lunch or whether he would take care of his children. It’s an incredible injustice.
Radka Denemarkova
- Writer, literary historian, screenwriter, translator and dramaturg.
- She is the only Czech author to have won the Magnesia Litera Prize a total of four times, in the categories of prose (2007: Money from Hitler), journalism (2009: Smrt, nebudeš se báti), translation (2011: Rozhupaný dech) and Book of the Year (2019: Hodiny of Lead).
- She graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy at Charles University (majoring in German and Bohemian Studies) and received her doctorate in 1997.
- She worked as a researcher at the Institute of Czech Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic or as a lecturer and dramaturge at the Na Zábradlí Theater in Prague.
- This year she became a member of the German Academy for Language and Poetry.
If you were to place the three selected archetypes in the present, which current personalities would move the story?
Our future was prepared by the story of Mr. Rockefeller. He is the prototype of the oligarchs whose behavior has not changed to this day, of all these Babis and Trumps. Just because they circumvented the law, lied, and took property at the expense of others, they felt they had the right to everything. George Sand represents independent authors who finally no longer have to define themselves as women.
Bozena Němcová is a smart person who cannot live her life because she was born in a woman’s skin. He has to serve, he has to fight hard through life.
Here the idea remains that the artist should starve like Němcová. Our ex-president said during the Corona crisis that artists would not receive support in times of pandemics, inflation and wars. In his opinion, they do best when they are hungry.
Through Němcová I also researched the topic of single mothers, which is my personal topic, I myself am a single mother and freelance writer. Such a life is not for cowards, but unlike her, I was lucky, international success came and abroad saved me. Freedom and independence are essential for me.
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Filming on a feature-length documentary about you will begin shortly. How is it perceived?
I like that it will be international, it won’t be classically boring biographical, but that it will focus on the influence of the present in my work. I don’t separate literature and life. In the last few years I have lived abroad a lot, have friends across national borders and therefore move freely from any boxes in parallel worlds. That’s why everyone sees me from a different perspective and the only people who really know me are my children Honza and Ester.
Who is behind the film’s creative team?
The director is Slobodanka Radun, who I trust completely. During the Yugoslavian War, she went to Prague and graduated from FAMU. She is very talented and speaks many languages. So it’s spread across the country and has a broader perspective, which suits me.
After the publication of my previous book, “Hours of Lead,” in which I analyze the authoritarian regime in China, I faced countless attacks from local and Russian troll farms (state-sponsored entities engaging in hybrid warfare – editor’s note). For example, they insult you by creating a collage from a porn film into which they insert a part of your face.
One of the things I want to say in the documentary is how I learned to deal with hatred towards myself and how in this world it is necessary to maintain moral integrity and not be intimidated by anyone or anything.
I would also like to give a voice to my colleagues who are in prison or being persecuted in many countries. In order for our world to change for the better, we cannot stand idly by.
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