The House of the Deaf Man

Alfonz Trnovsky, a general practitioner in the small town of Brezany, has spent his whole life pretending to be radiantly happy and contented, unburdened by history and all its abysses, twists, and turns, while the reality is quite different. He has refused to listen to his conscience as the 20th century hurtled by: four political regimes, the Jewish Question, the political trials of the 1950s, the secret police after 1968—and all the women he loved. But whose bones does his son accidentally stumble upon buried in the garden? The House of the Deaf Man takes readers on a tour of Slovak history from the 1930s to the 1990s. It is narrated by the doctor’s son, Adam, who comes to say goodbye to the house from which he has never managed to break free. He tells the story of a father-son relationship and of surprising connections between the past and memory.

Peter Kristufek is an author and an award-winning filmmaker. His work has been published in numerous anthologies, including Best European Fiction 2010, and in many Slovak newspapers and magazines. He is the author ofThe Atlas of Forgetting.