Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

An unusual crime novel with a surreal, fairy-tale atmosphere, set on a plateau in the mountains on the border between Poland and the Czech Republic. The protagonist, Janina Duszejko, is an eccentric English teacher who is passionate about William Blake and astrology, and who lives isolated from the world, preferring to avoid human contact. One evening Janina finds her neighbour Bigfoot dead, apparently suffocated. This is the first in a series of strange deaths on the plateau and the main suspects appear to be the wild animals of the valley, which possibly want to take revenge for the violence suffered at the hands of human beings. Janina, who loves animals more than humans, thus attempts to put a spoke in the poachers’ wheels. Olga Tokarczuk, Nobel Laureate in Literature in 2018, tells us a humorous but grotesque story, addressing environmentalist and feminist issues in an enchanting prose that combines various narrative styles.   Guida il tuo carro sulle ossa dei morti Olga Tokarczuk Bompiani, 2020