Socrates on the equator

The search is a tricky and extremely uncertain thing, you never know, he'll encounter on the road, that he took, what hidden corners it will reveal, whether he'll enjoy them, or whether he'll end up bitterly cursing his decision. Especially if he decides to look for his own father. Tomáš Zmeškal takes us on just such a journey in the footsteps of his father, who came from the Congo, in his new book Socrates on the Equator. Unlike his previous novels, in this story he describes the fate of his parents and reveals something about himself. However, as a skilled storyteller with a distinctive style, he intuitively avoids merely recounting classical family history and tells, for example, of the historical transgressions committed by some European states towards Africa and its peoples at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Only from this intertwining of the two stories, of that intimate account of father and family with the history of the culture clash, the resulting shape of Socrates at the equator, a set of diary entries, memories, reflections and family reports. Here again it is shown that the search is always an extremely complex activity, that it is not enough to search through the registers and compile family trees. Those who want to truly understand where they are coming from must be able to temporarily leave themselves and dare to dive deeper, into society, the earth and history. Only then does a complete picture of ourselves, our past and those who brought us into the world emerge.