Richard Erml
Richard Erml (b. 1961) Novelist, theatre critic and journalist
Zuzanka a tibetské velehory [Susanna and the High Mountains of Tibet]
(novel, 2002, 230 pp, hardback, ISBN 80-7227-118-0)
Richard Erml´s first work of fiction is the product of his four-month honeymoon trip to Tibet, Nepal and India with his wife, an expert on Tibet and Tibetan. When he returned he began writing up his notes from the journey in a Prague hospital, where he was recovering from a life-threatening illness. He has produced a work that, thanks to his extraordinary adventures, goes far beyond the classic travel book, series of travel reports or the usual travel diary.
Reviews:
"A highly readable, affectionate and sarcastic, matter-of-fact but also personal, never less than gripping work by a Czech "agent in Tibet" who is also an editor at Divadelní noviny [Theatre News]. A man who at home is a strict critic becomes on his travels an attentive observer who, by means of a journey from the Czech Republic to Tibet and back, reaches distant mountain regions and places hidden in remote darkness, in so doing learning about the deep valleys and mountain ranges within himself. Written as if life depends on it."
(výběr-knihy [Books Selection], Salon)
"[The author] restricts himself to keen personal observation and does not fall into the trap of believing himself capable of analysis on the second day of his stay. Nor does Erml succumb to that other danger which tempts the writer in the mountains: that of poetization, the rendering banal of the abundant beauty which surrounds him."
(Jiří Rulf, Reflex)
Czech writers on the book:
"The way this remarkable book begins is very much to my taste: from the very first sentence, we have the feeling that everything is stake - like in Beethoven's Fifth. A recently divorced man goes away on a four-month honeymoon, his purpose being to get to know the woman he has just married in the context of a totally strange world. The achieving of this knowledge almost costs him his life. What is sometimes a story and sometimes is not, tossing itself from the embrace a romance to that of an intelligent travel guide and back, works to build up an enduring tension. Furthermore, the work is well structured and the language of the telling is evocative, much as if this well-known critic of the theatre wished to demonstrate that which he demands of the dramatist. This is book which is well worth reading!"
(Pavel Kohout)
"This is no ordinary travel book. A Prague intellectual exchanges the milieux of theatre and newspaper office for the uncertainty of a walk "on the tightrope of his own insanity" in the interiors of Tibet, Nepal and India. An adventure which begins as a fairy-tale honeymoon is transformed into a fight for survival in the company of monkeys, rats, beggars, dogs and mounds of tourist-generated rubbish. A single gulp of water puts the lid on the author's physical and mental exhaustion, turning a pilgrimage into a voyage of delirium. Erml is on the brink of paying life's highest price. He has survived to tell a tale which can be read in a single sitting."
(Jáchym Topol)
"The relationship between a man and a woman - and Tibet. Two distinct themes which the author succeeds in bringing together to remarkable effect. He is able to write well and to draw on his memory. On occasion you may have cause to disagree with him, but not for one moment will he bore you. If the quality of a book is judged by how interesting it is, then this is a good book."
(Michal Viewegh)
Notes:
Sample translations into English available on these web pages.
Zuzanka a tibetské velehory / Susanna and the High Mountains of Tibet
