Czech literature series

Michal Ajvaz

In Prague, a modern-day Gulliver sets out to preserve the strange truth of a three-year stay on a remote tropical island—an encounter he can’t shake and can’t fully explain. Framed as a fantastical travelogue, the narrative unfolds along the Tropic of Cancer, where a tiny, twelve-mile-wide world becomes a living laboratory of culture, language, and perception. As the narrator records daily life and uncanny discoveries, the book blurs the line between observation and invention, turning travel writing into a meditation on memory, authorship, and the stories we tell to make sense of the unknown. With Michal Ajvaz’s signature blend of lyrical imagination and philosophical play, this novel invites readers to question what “real” means when a civilization is seen through the shifting lens of a single witness.