A thriller-like story involving the Russian mafia and the smuggling of rare plants, intertwined with a dramatic love triangle. This is set against the backdrop of climate change – including suffering from solastalgia – in a heat- and flood-ravaged Prague.

Climate Grief is a multifaceted work that mixes and mashes together a variety of genres and styles to create a heady concoction of crime story, horror story (inspired by the Japanese tradition of kaidan), ecological revenge fantasy, and Siberian shamanism. Nothing is what it seems. What appears to be human is actually a shell occupied by an alien spirit, or demon, and what appears to be an unassuming plant is an aggressive parasite that harbors a poisonous substance within, or manifests itself as an assassin, a phantom with no real substance who pursues his victims across Europe and through a post-apocalyptic Prague ravaged by floods. The blind see, and the seeing are blind. Plants behave like animals, and animals are symbionts with plants. Through these devices, Šindelka weaves a tale of three childhood friends, the errant paths their lives take, and the world of rare plant smuggling — and the consequences of taking the wrong plant — to show the rickety foundation of illusions on which our relationship to the environment, and to one another, rests. It is a world of aberrations, anomalies, and mistakes.

“Šindelka does not like to rest on his laurels; with each new book he challenges himself and the reader. That makes him one of Europe’s most interesting young writers.”

— De Standaard

“In ‘Climate Grief’ Marek Šindelka proves once again that he is called a child prodigy for good reason. ”

— Knack

“‘Climate Grief’ has become another novel in which the author’s talent clearly shows.”

— Cutting Edge

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