Zbořil in the building novel: some remarks on the style and genre characteristics of Miroslav Rafaj's »Slaný sníh«

Abstract

The study deals with the novel Slaný sníh (“Salty Snow”), written by Miroslav Rafaj, an Ostrava-based regional author. Rafaj forms part of the socialist realism fiction in the era of the Czechoslovak “Normalization” (1970s). The analysis focuses on the genre aspects of the book, the story characters, its setting, period, and atmosphere. Besides the literary analysis, an onomastic perspective will be made use of, too. The goal of the article is to show both the specific, and typical features of the novel within the period fiction, and to arouse interest in researching the books of the same kind.