Where Mušov Used to Be

In the south of Moravia, in a landscape of rivers and vineyards, the clouds of war are gathering over the village of Mušov. Life here is slowly turning into a quiet tension between Czechs and Germans, once close neighbours who for generations shared the same land and the same fate. When the war ends, old certainties crumble. The German inhabitants are forced to leave, their homes are occupied by newcomers, and the landscape quietly stores the memory of all who once lived there. But it does not yet know that it will soon disappear beneath the water's surface.

The novel Where Mušov Used to Be captures the transformations of a place that had to give way to water, and of people who had to give way to the decisions of the powerful. At the centre of the narrative are Tonda Mráček, a post-war immigrant to Mušov who, out of a desire for security and benefits, also accepts membership in the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), and the slightly older native Mirek Nevřel, who tirelessly searches for his lost German love, Emma. Their stories intertwine with the fates of other inhabitants, together creating a mosaic of one landscape and one century, marked by expulsion, collectivisation, compromises during the Normalisation period, and ecological and cultural resistance during the regime's final days.

Where Mušov Used to Be is a novel about memory and demise, about guilt, reconciliation, and the power of places that do not disappear, even when the water closes over them.