The Last Goddess

Reviews

"On the backdrop of a world, in which time seems to come to a stop, the author depicts the fortunes of several generations of simple countrywomen endowed with extraordinary healing and psychic abilities, the Goddesses of Žítková. And it is a fascinating narration. A novel on a great women’s topic of faith in natural forces and incantation, a healing power of hope, but also of solitude, despair, cruelty and vengefulness. (...)
The Žítková Goddesses is among the most interesting books that have grown up in the Czech Republic on the field of novel in recent years. (...)"  
Veronika Jurčová, kultura21.cz 

"She enriched contemporary historical prose with her precise work." 
Michaela Keroušová, Hospodářské noviny  

"Release of the new novel The Žítková Goddesses (Host 2012) had been announced as a literary event. And, to begin with, we can state that this expectation has been successfully met. (...)
The story is masterfully composed, containing several stylistic planes that gradually become entwined in a single great picture. It shows us that lives do not need to be mundane, and a seemingly ordinary environment may hide great stories. I cannot remember when I last read a story with such a strong motif of realized vengeance in Czech literature. (...)
The original theme of the novel can be regarded as clearly positive. It had been waiting to be approached in a grand manner, having been only captured in ethnographic and regional literature. The author managed to recast extensive historic and folklore material into a remarkable novel. A strong story and vivid language full of images ask to be made into a movie. (...) we are presented with a novel which is a Czech literary event."  
Pavel Kotrla, Týdeník Rozhlas

"The Žítková Goddesses can be read as a book about an extinct folk tradition, as a polemic between a purely scientific world view and that stemming from understanding of nature and human soul. Or as a kind of folk murder tale revealing how hatred can survive in a warped mind for decades and destroy even those who have no idea of the original injustice. Or saying that a clearly lined life does not exist, that a chance always comes into play. Or a curse?
The Žítková Goddesses are a classical and fascinating narration whose rhythm is beneficially broken by quotations from archive materials or secret police records, always carefully linguistically characterized. (...) A remarkable novel."  
Kryštof Špidla, Český rozhlas

"A few really interesting books have been published recently. One of them is the novel The Žítková Goddesses by Kateřina Tučková, my clear candidate for the book of the year."  
Kateřina Kadlecová, Reflex

 

From the reviews for the German edition (DVA, 2015)

"It is said that women with magical powers lived in the White Carpathians, on the Moravian border, until the 1950s. Kateřina Tučková tells the story of a woman who grew up in such a family. The Žítková Goddesses is a book in which fact blends with fiction to masterly effect, so drawing the reader ever deeper into the story […]

This novel excels in the subtlety of its composition and the variety of its stylistic and linguistic resources as well as by the uniqueness of its theme and its meticulous intertwining of fact and fiction. "

Olga Hochweis, Deutschlandradio Kultur – Lesart

    

"The reading public obviously appreciates Kateřina Tučková’s complex prose. Although the plot is not always easy to follow, it is tight-knit and consistent in a peculiarly provocative way. Rather than presenting us with an ambiguous ending, the book serves up a number of circular plotlines, which are closed in a fascinating manner […] 

Tučková has written an enchanting, thrilling story which asks a number of questions of our past and present ideas about backwardness and progress and human and social categorization, and how and why we have explored knowledge. To none of these questions do we get a definitive, or even a firm answer. Tučková prizes this ambiguity, and she draws it out in her fiction with great skill. "   

Martina Winkler, Zeitgeschichte Online

 

"The Žítková Goddesses, a novel by Czech author Kateřina Tučková, has a decidedly esoteric feel, yet it is actually more realistic and heavier on fact than a work of fiction tends to be.

Tučková has studied a lot of archive materials, none of which explain the space occupied by mystery, magic or whatever else we might call it – perhaps because it is inexplicable. Tučková refers to this space in a way that is at once subtle, sober and psychologically sensitive, holding it close as, not a moment too soon, she cautiously reveals its contents." 

Carolin Herrmann, Coburger Tageblatt, 19 November 2015

 

"Kateřina Tučková’s The Žítková Goddesses is a masterpiece. […]

In the German edition this disturbing novel is subtitled ‘A curious tale from the White Carpathians’. Readers find themselves in danger of being engulfed by a silent, sinister force. […]

Like the tightening of a screw, Dora advances towards her fate slowly and steadily. The novel’s ending is so surprising in its ruthlessness that we ask ourselves if we have imagined it. In the epilogue, the woods of Kopanice murmur and the branches of its spruces sway. “I caught myself wondering why they were moving when there was no wind.” Dora is no longer around to provide an answer. Nor is there an answer from Kateřina Tučková, whom we have to thank for this superb book." 

Volker Strebel, Prager Zeitung

 

"A masterful blend of fact and fiction."

Der Standard (A)

 

"This novel crosses from fiction to the telling of real events, and it skips between times. It changes styles, too: long-winded communist reports give way to poetic descriptions of nature and chanted prayers and formulas. Light reading it isn’t. "

Andrea Lieblang, WDR

 

"This story by Czech author Kateřina Tučková is peculiar and based largely on fact. Although the theme gives the appearance of esotericism, the novel is not in the least abstruse. The author, a literary scholar and curator, subjects the activities of healers (known as ‘goddesses’) in the Moravian village of Žítková to the analytical view of the scientist. 

In the Czech Republic, a country of 10 million inhabitants, Tučková’s fabulously thrilling and exceptionally well-written and well-researched novel has sold 100,000 copies.

It is still one of literature’s finer tasks to return us to a world of magic. In this instance, this return is a triumph." 

Katharina Granzin, TAZ. die Tageszeitung

 

"The novel’s introduction sets a frantic pace, as if the reader were required to go back in time two thousand and more years, for that’s how long the goddesses have lived in the Carpathians. Although at first the story has a fairy-tale quality, it becomes ever more apparent that it addresses very sensitive archive materials. " 

Jenny Schon, LandesEcho