Regardless of the poem I would not enter the thirteenth chamber, i.e. the proverbial skeleton-filled closet, it would seem that is where Irena Dousková wrote the collection Without the Riding Hood. Although the poems are not lacking in lighter-hearted wit, they also quiver with constant anxiety over the absurd and cruel world into which we are thrust unasked, and from which we are eventually thrown out again – perhaps only God knows why and where. And this anxiety is not just self-absorbed, but also compassionate: I always come back to point zero / Point zero / is minus six million.
But Dousková is a poet of hope: Although everything is often seemingly damned, if not actually damned, I shall still not stop praying.
Milan Ohnisko

Year published: 2009
Illustrations: Lucie Lomová using an archive picture by an unknown artist
Graphic design: Bedřich Vémola
ISBN: 978–80–7227–287–7
Samples

A prose work with a subtly balladic tone that evokes summer air billowing over baking asphalt. The story takes place during the 1970s in a village near Beroun. In short interconnected sections a famous children's counting rhyme is played out over a single week: Joy, sorrow, love, marriage, fable, cradle, sable, death.

Cover and illustrations: Lucie Lomová.
Year published: 2008
Graphic design: Lucie Lomová, Bedřich Vémola (type)
ISBN 978–80–7227–276–1

New edition published by Petrov with cover and illustrations by Lucie Lomová.

Year published: 2006
Number of pages: 166
Graphic design by Lucie Lomová and Bedřich Vémola
ISBN 80–7227–253–5

This book follows on loosely from B. Proudew. Again we meet the chief protagonist Helena Součková, now in her final year at grammar school. Like B. Proudew, this work portrays the strangely ash-grey days of Husák's norma­lization period. It is both an autobiographical personal tale and a tragicomic mosaic of the era, which has lost none of its monstrosity with the passage of time. The degenerate, corrupt Communist Absurdistan of Czechoslovakia emerges here in all its poverty and nakedness (seemingly just by the way, but all the more convincingly as a result).

Year of publication: 2006
Number of pages: 260
Cover: Lucie Lomová
Graphic design: Bedřich Vémola
ISBN 80–7227–244–6

The collection of short stories entitled What Makes This Night Different consists of ten ballad-like tales. Although they take place within an unusually broad timeframe, from the dawn of our era to the 1970s, they are systematically conceived as an integral unit. The cover was designed by Lucie Lomová.
The keystone to this ten-story collection is the introductory quote from Zeyer's Jan Maria Plojhar: „I know her: she isn't bad, but moderately good people can be very tough.“

Year published: 2004
Number of pages: 108
ISBN 80–7227–188–1

Second edition, published by Petrov, cover by Lucie Lomová. In the same year the book was adapted for stage and put on at Příbram Theatre, with Barbora Hrzánová in the leading role.

Year published: 2002
Number of pages: 168
Second edition, first at Petrov
ISBN 80–7227–132–6

This book of short stories about human relations and their imperfections consists of twelve separate texts, reminiscent in some ways of an annual almanac, based primarily on the subjects of partnership, marriage and the family. The first book by Irena Dousková published by Petrov.

Cover illustration: Ivana Lomová
Year published: 2002
Number of pages: 174
ISBN 80–7227–122–9

The story of a young woman in an outwardly respectable marriage who goes through a profound crisis. She describes her life in diary entries not dissimilar to those of a castaway on a desert island. „Hausfrau blues“ or, as somebody once described this book, a little emotional horror story.

Hynek, 2000
ISBN: 80–86202–71–2

A collection of poems published jointly with L. Lomová, J. Reinisch and P. Ulrych.

Publishers: Pražská imaginace, March 1992
ISBN 80–7110–066–8
Illustrations: Lucie Lomová

A stage adaptation of B. Proudew based on the book of that name was presented at the Antonín Dvořák Theatre in Příbram in 2003. The text was adapted for stage by the author, with Bára Hrzánová in the leading role. Directed by Jiří Schmied.
Bára Hrzánová has received the Thálie award for her excellent performance. Audiences liked the production so much that it is being staged all over the country to this day and the Divadlo bez zábradlí theatre in Prague has also included it in its repertoire. The run of performances now exceeds three hundred.

In collaboration with director Jan Borna, Irena Dousková dramatized Onegin was a Rusky in 2007. The premiere was staged at the Divadlo v Dlouhé theatre on 19th January 2008. In contrast to the small-scale conception of B. Proudew (for three actors), practically the entire Divadlo v Dlouhé ensemble took part in the production of Onegin. The early eighties atmosphere is evoked amongst other things by a number of songs from the period, which the V Dlouhé actors and musicians performed with their own special enthusiasm and proficiency.
Adaptation of the book by Irena Dousková Onegin was a Rusky for stage at the Divadlo v Dlouhé theatre.

Collaboration on the script: Jan Borna