Mushroom Gatherer

In a forest where every step is familiar, Sára searches for mushrooms—but what she unearths instead are the long-buried truths of her own life. Nestled deep in the Bohemian Forest, Sára’s world is quiet and bound to the rhythms of nature. She has wandered the same wooded trails for seven years, filling her basket with mushrooms, her pockets with memories, and her thoughts with the past she cannot quite escape. The solitude suits her—until the death of her mother forces her to confront the tangled roots of family and the wounds that never fully healed. As Sára meticulously sorts through chanterelles and boletes, she also sorts through childhood recollections and the uneasy inheritance of trauma. The forest offers refuge, but it also holds secrets, and as the seasons shift, so does Sára’s understanding of herself and the complicated bonds that tether her to the world. With melodic prose and an acute sensitivity to how landscapes shape lives, Viktorie Hanišová crafts a novel of quiet intensity and deep introspection. The Mushroom Gatherer is a haunting meditation on loss and the delicate balance between isolation and connection, perfect for readers drawn to atmospheric fiction.

Viktorie Hanišová explores themes of trauma, motherhood, and societal issues in her acclaimed works. Her novels Anežka, The Mushroom Gatherer, and Reconstruction form a loose trilogy on trauma and family dynamics. A graduate of Charles University, Prague, Hanišová also writes short stories and works as a translator and language teacher. Véronique Firkusny is a translator and executive director of the Avery Fisher Artist Program at Lincoln Center. She coaches opera singers in Czech diction in New York City and her notable translations include Kateřina Tučková’s Gerta and Daniela Hodrová’s trilogy City of Torment (with Elena Sokol).