I don’t know, Benes. I’m not sure I’ve ever really understood women for that kind of commitment.’ He flipped his beer mat up int the air with his index finger and caught it in his...

9 November 1989. A day nobody would forget. She had heard rumours about the wall.

As the sun lowered into the city’s skyline, casting an orange glow over the islands, Jana could feel people’s hopes rising.

As people’s hopes soared, Jana felt a tinge of fear.

Mr Martinek turned back to Jana. ‘Thirty-eight per cent alcohol, sixty-two per cent fire – all the way from Karlovy Vary.

To Jana’s mind everybody seemed happy to see BAbichka and resisted returning her, like a misplaced package sent to the wrong address. It was as if the recipient opened it up, knowing it should be...

He nodded, looking across the room at the sea of photographers and journalists. The microphones spread around him like birds waiting to be fed.

One word was the method by which the state collected their information. They could reel in the informants and spread them out like tentacles, ready to sting in any direction.

The others moved in like a wake of vultures, ready to devour their prey. she had seen it on television once. ‘Scavengers,’ Tatinek called them. They swoop in and feed off the carcasses of animals...

The lines in the corners of her eyes spoke of years of wisdom, as a tree with the number of rings increasing with each passing year. She was a small frame of a woman with...

The sublime beauty was almost hidden withing the castle walls. She believed that the treasured things in life were often hard to find – a pearl in an oyster shell, a kind word in the...