Bídné roky - Sweetwater

The second volume (originally published in 1976) of the Norwegian writer's science-fiction, post-apocalyptic novel depicts the future of a city of eight million, with the threat of civilization's economic demise looming over them.
Using the fate of a group of people focused on defending their bare lives, the author depicts the possible demise and destruction of humanity in horrific images and situations in a highly evocative manner. The novel is interesting, worthwhile, but at times very depressing and naturalistic.

More and more substitute foods are appearing on the market due to a catastrophic shortage of raw materials, services are functioning poorly or not at all, humiliation, rudeness and brutality are a normal part of life for the inhabitants, and a general crisis is peaking. Former architect Allan Ung, his eighteen-year-old wife Lisa, and five-year-old son Boy leave the city and settle in an old trailer on a huge urban garbage dump, becoming robinsons on an island bought from the remains of a dying civilization. Soon they also find friends, the same willing outcasts as themselves: the former Dr. Fischer, who lives in an old half-decayed mansion on the shores of a chemical-waste-infested bay; the self-sacrificing and animalistic whore Mary Diamond and her freeloading protector Smiley; and finally the mysterious pair of "foreign workers," Felix and his mute brother Run-Run. A peculiar community forms, governed by its own unwritten laws, until the laws of the jungle reach them too from the dying city.

Czech Edition