Marie Majerová (1882-1967) is known as a prose writer of women's destinies and the author of socially themed novels Siréna and Havířská balada. However, the pinnacle of her work is much more the novel Přehrada, which was first published in 1932 and highly praised by F. X. Šalda. In it, the writer drew inspiration from avant-garde techniques and particularly from the prose of the American Dos Passos; she captured the modern metropolis with its diverse mix of inhabitants, spaces, and forms, with contrasts of everyday poverty, the achievements of civilization, and exoticism. In thirty-nine short chapters, each set in a different environment, the revolution that takes place in Prague in the future is described over the course of twenty-four hours. This revolution is not merely a power coup but is also conceived in an avant-garde spirit as a game. The current edition returns to the first publication from 1932, thus removing the post-war self-censorship interventions that Majerová made in her work.
