Beliefs

Where can life's whirlpools take us?

Ester is an ordinary divorced mother, except for the fact that she works as a prostitute—a secret she keeps from everyone, just like the fateful accident that pushed her into this trap. She lives with her son in the Vysočina region, in her grandmother's house, whom she often remembers for her kindness, but also for her somewhat bigoted faith. For her stressful income, Ester travels to the Hatě border crossing, into a bizarre world full of casinos, brothels, markets, and attractions.

And it is here that another event occurs that will definitively derail the course of her life. In a spiral of manipulation, violence, and bad decisions, is it a step for the better, or for the worse? Ester is more surviving than living and really has only one reason to go on—her eleven-year-old son, Vojta. What would happen if he found out the whole truth about her?

What beliefs do we cling to in order to withstand the turbulence of fate? And how are we transformed by the light before the threshold of death?

The self-assured prosaic pace is pleasantly complemented by subtle atmospheres, details, emotions—in short, the poetic line that Háblová is disposed to by her writer's roots. And what is most essential, the author manages to examine even very socially urgent topics from an impressive, intimate perspective, without moralising of any kind…
— Martin Stöhr, editor

I am trying to peek into the life of a sex worker who enters the world of the sex business despite being raised in a strict Catholic faith. Through her story, I observe whether faith in life is just a kind of crutch, or a space, a connection where the physical world can truly meet the spiritual. I am interested in whether an excessive effort to follow any rules leads to an absence of understanding and compassion, because it is easy to be scandalised by someone, and it is difficult to be the one by whom others are scandalised…
— Anna Beata Háblová, author