The Fifth Dimension - by Martin Vopenka (Paperback)

About the Book

First published as Paatay rozmaeer by Kniha Zlain, 2009.

Book Synopsis

A contemporary classic from the Czech Republic.

To support his family, a man submits himself to a solo science experiment in the High Andes. This is a cosmic adventure story of big ideas and murder.

Your business is dead. It seems like a deal: leave your family behind in Prague for a year, isolate yourself in a research station in the Andes, and come home with a fortune. With a treatise on black holes for company, Jakob settles in at altitude. The air is thin. Strangers pass by on dangerous pilgrimage while his young wife and kids take life in his mind. In mountain starkness, the big questions take shape: like what happens to love inside a black hole?

Review Quotes

"Ably translated from the original Czech by Hana Sklenkova, The Fifth Dimension is a weighty and at times challenging read, its themes nothing less than life, death, the universe and love. It is absorbing, haunting and intellectually engaging throughout, with a gut-punch denouement." - James Lovegrove, The Financial Times

About the Author

Hana Sklenkova, born in Zamberk in the Czech Republic, has a Creative Writing MA from Plymouth University and is currently working on her first novel, an excerpt from which appeared in the Czech Issue of The Edinburgh Review in 2010. Martin Vopenka was born in Prague in 1963. The son of a famous mathematician, he studied nuclear and physical engineering at Charles University, Prague, but was always intent on being a writer. His first novel, Kamany s Hov, was published in 1989.