Playing Wolf

A couple deep in the woods of a failing marriage find themselves the unwitting victims of a kidnapping plot after they move to a mysterious village in this distinctly poetic and disturbingly elegant horror novel for fans of Midsommar and The Witch

Husband and wife Bohumil and Bohumila, together with their son, move from Prague to a remote village with the hopes of salvaging their marriage. In the searing summer heat, they try to fit in with the villagers, only to be met with hostile stares and evasive lies. Each night, the couple hears what they suspect to be a large animal wandering around their cottage--an impression that oddly corresponds to the mysterious flyers found at the local watering hole regarding a wolfen fairytale. As inexplicable coincidences begin piling up, it’s clear something sinister is afoot.

After a drunken night out, Bohumil and Bohumila come home to find the house empty: their son is gone. After three days of searching, they find the villagers in festive costumes gathered outside their cottage. Is it a bizarre game, or some perverse, folkloric ritual? Are Bohumil and Bohumila in danger? And what has happened to their son?

A dark social tale that slides inexorably towards psychological horror, Playing Wolf is a modern ballad of human destiny and discovering the animal in each of us.

ZUZANA ŘÍHOVÁ studied Czech Language and Literature and Comparative Literature at the Charles University in Prague. She has been working at the Institute of Czech Literature since 2007 and was Head of Czech Studies at the University of Oxford from 2014-2017. Říhová, who has a lifelong interest in Czech avantgarde literature, has published a collection of poetry, I’ll Let You in My House (Pustím si tě do domu, 2016), and a novella, Little Eve (Evička, 2018), which was named as one of the Books of the Year in 2018 by a Czech literary web magazine.

ALEX ZUCKER’s translations include novels by Magdaléna Platzová, Jáchym Topol, Bianca Bellová, Petra Hůlová, and Tomás Zmeskal. He has also Englished plays, subtitles, young adult and children’s books, poems, philosophy, art history, and an opera.