Slovak Literature in English Translation

A book of aphorisms written with an unerring sense of compression, paradox, and pointed, astonishing abstraction. The individual statements are unlikely to suffer a quick death in the reader’s short-term memory, because they depend on one another, compete with one another, complement one another, and contradict one another – all at the same time. Together, they form an open and fluid, yet ultimately composite whole. A complex, at times grotesque portrait of humanity repeatedly shifts into a tragicomic vision of absurdity, while maintaining a remarkable distance from the events that constitute the crisis of the world around us. This is writing poised on the edge of black humour, with a hint of Kafkaesque horror. The cover illustration is by Mikuláš Galanda.