Socrates on the Equator is a non-fiction book on the theme of Czech author Tomáš Zmeškal’s search for his Congolese father. The book has two parts, the first describing the search and the second, in diary form, the visit in Congo to his father and his family.

The book opens by describing how, in 2006, eight years after returning from an 11-year stay in London, Zmeškal decides to take up the search for his father again, leaving no stone unturned even though he has little to no concrete leads. His hopes of finding his father are slim, and he compensates by immersing himself as much as he can in Congo’s history and, for instance, in how and why his father was able to end up in the then communist Czechoslovakia from Congo in the 1960s. Tragic in this, his mother refuses to give him any information about his father.

Crucially is a meeting with renowned Belgian writer David van Reybroeck, known for his book Congo, Thanks to van Reybroeck’s contacts in Congo, there is hope that Zmeškal will actually find out something concrete about his father. The first part ends with Zmeškal , now back in Prague, receiving an e-mail from his half-sister. It then turns out that his family has also been looking for him for some time.

.The second part is an account of Zmeškal’s trip to Congo. In the form of a diary, he describes, among other things, his meeting with his father and his family. A thread running through this diary is the clash between two cultures: Zmeškal as a (Western) European who, as his father’s eldest child, suddenly becomes the pater familias in an African (Congolese) culture he is unfamiliar with and sometimes at odds with his own European values and norms. His statement: ‘For Europe I am too black, for Africa I am too white,’ sums it up.

The diary is a combination of tourist impressions, historical facts, sketches of a self-consciously developing society, a glimpse into complex family ties (Zmeškal’s father married several times and has children from all his marriages), and into the prevailing social and cultural codes. But above all, it is still a personal account, in which Zmeškal also explicitly reflects his own person and experiences.

“Tomáš Zmeškal’s book oscillates between fiction and non-fiction. The amount of information and the way it is presented about the history and present of the Congo goes beyond the usual amount of facts used in fiction. The realistic, unembellished view of Africa and his family members also contributes to this impression. For the reader, the book is an opportunity to share Zmeškal’s world for a while, to participate in his quest.”

— Vaše Literatura

“Tomáš Zmeškal’s book ‘Socrates at the Equator’ is more personal than his previous novels.”

— Hospodářské noviny