Genocide, History, Fame: Jáchym Topol Has a Lot on His Mind

"Set in the Terezín ghetto and in Belarus, [The Devil's Workshop] continues Topol’s practice of re-examining history through the surrealist-tinted lens of his imagination. The subject of [his latest novel] is Topol’s darkest yet: the Belarusian genocide, propagated by the Nazis as part of Generalplan Ost, the ethnic cleansing of Eastern Europe which led to the death of approximately 4 million men, women and children, about half the population of Belarus. 'Belarus shocked me. I went there because one of my books was published there, and I learned what many people still do not realize: that the country is an unhappy place where the machinery of mass murder was tested,' he said."

—"Author is hemmed in by history," The Prague Post, Oct. 13, 2010

Cover of Chladnou zemí (2009), now
available in English as The Devil's Workshop.