Zbabělci (Cowards) is a Czech novel by Josef Škvorecký. Written in 1948 and 1949 and first published in 1958, it is a story from the very end of the Second World War in Europe. Narrated in the first person by a Czech teenager Danny Smiřický, it takes place from 4 May to 11 May 1945 in his hometown, a fictional eastern Bohemian small town Kostelec.