Ceilings

Kin to the work of Leonora Carrington and Unica Zürn, Ceilings is a polyphonic novel that takes place in a mental hospital in Prague where the “narrator” is undergoing detox treatment for substance abuse. As the borders blur between inner experience and the outer world, between reality and dream, as the walls and ceilings hemming in the desire for freedom fantastically break open as if into the unknown and gender fluidly shifts between brother and sister, who are one and the same, Brabcová’s flights of imagination portray how difficult it is to “come out of oneself” and to engage with the other in a multifarious world that demands it of us, no matter how ambivalently.

Translation: Tereza Novická

Publisher: Twisted Spoon Press

ISBN: 9788088628057

Publication year: 2025

Format: Softcover

Magnesia Litera Prose Book of the Year for 2013.

«However, in Ceilings, Ema’s unsteady grasp on reality reads more like an opportunity for Brabcová to explore new formal possibilities; the book is written by someone who seems to believe that the boundaries between “dream and reality, fact and fiction” are already thin. Ema’s illness may be a plot device, but it is also a way to dissolve the architecture we conventionally associate with the novel, making Ceilings a space for ontological play.» — Garrett Biggs, Asymptote

«Ema’s dilemma, her inability to successfully integrate her internal and external reality, reflecting a lifetime of emotional and mental health challenges mediated by substance abuse, is the driving force of this intense, vulnerable, and moving novel, one that draws on Brabacová’s own experiences, […] Its raw, unapologetic narrative slips seamlessly between voice and perspective, continually cross-referencing itself, to create a world—one woman’s world, past and present—that for all its surreal elements is cohesive, sympathetic and real.» — roughghosts

«The prose is hypnotic and often very beautiful, but the narrative is fragmented; that, of course, is deliberate, to replicate the state of Ema’s mind as she undergoes her detox, with her mental state often spiralling out of control. The surreal imagery, the shifts of location, the fluidity of her identity are all brilliantly rendered by Brabcova, and the result is an exhilarating and sometimes dizzying work which leaves you a bit stunned.» — Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings

«Ceilings is a crazy, delirious read, one that explores the complexities of being human and ruminates on how we assemble ourselves from what has happened to us, who we know, what we would like to happen and who we would like to meet.» — Rupert Loydell, International Times

«The ceiling that forms the horizon of someone lying in a hospital bed becomes a metaphor for the mingling of the past with the present, of phantasmagoria with the real. It is the very ceiling of reality, with a hole yawning with hallucinatory visions and memories, passage through which only leads to the next, ultimate ceiling of the self.» — iLiteratura.cz

«Zuzana Brabcová’s novel is a literary event, an extreme work, exceptional in its concision and poetry.» — Petr A. Bílek Respekt