14. 02. 2019

Elephants live 100 years

M. Zikmund, P. Horký, M. Náplava

In 2000 Miroslav Zikmund, Miroslav Náplava and I went to Sri Lanka and Maldives together. For Mirek Náplava and me at that time it was just an amazing trip with a travel guru. We had no idea what it would be like for Mr. Zikmund to return to one of the key places in his life after thirty-nine years. The book was first published in 2002. It became a bestseller and that was it for us. Or so we thought. I made a film of the same name (viewable here: https://www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1105485078-sloni-ziji-do-sta-let/), which got a kind review on CSFD…then suddenly Mr. Zikmund’s 100th birthday approached and I had an idea. Step one meant watching the movie and reading the almost twenty year old book. Well, it was a rough encounter with myself! :-))))
I sat down with Mirek Náplawa and we edited our texts a little. Then we realised, probably due to age, after all we are almost twenty years older than then, what a great adventure it is to go back to a wonderful stage of our own lives. And so we also finished some passages – as if when the book was first published it was just part of a story that was still running. Now we were able to wrap up the story and finish the plot.
The essence of the book’s publication in 2019 was that Miroslav Zikmund must not know about its preparation, so that it would be a gift on 14 February 2019 – the day of his 100th birthday. The grand conspiracy worked and even though the printing may have taken place at the Graspo printing plant, which is perhaps 1500 steps from where Zikmund lives, the surprise was a success! We also convinced the publisher that simply any advertising could not start until February 14, in short, when Mr. Zikmund receives the book as a gift. All this was successful, and many thanks to all those who were persuaded to such a foolishness and helped us to give the great traveller a gift that made him and him very happy!
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