Series: The Slovak List

An introduction to the work of acerbic Slovak writer Peter Macsovszky. Simon Blef, who comes from "a small, stifling country without a sea" in some corner of Europe, has gone to live in the Netherlands. There he has found a wife and hopes he may yet find work. He is making preparations: he carries around a notebook and jots down...

Stories that entwine the mundane with the mystical, written by a cult favourite Slovakian writer. An unhappily married woman is impregnated by her elderly neighbour who lives in a building across the street and with whom she has never had any physical contact. Just as his attention creates life within her, his own life waxes and wanes with her gaze...

A selection of poems that blend raw imagery with experimental forms, offering a vivid exploration of the body, language and shifting identities. What Now Is Now Is Now by Nóra Ružičková merges bodily experience with linguistic experimentation, evolving from self-reflection to an exploration of the complexities of gender and Central European identity. Her work deftly weaves personal narratives with political...

This poetry collection masterfully weaves themes of identity, resilience, and the search for meaning against the backdrop of an endless winter. Katarína Kucbelová’s whitewards is a haunting and deeply moving sequence of poems that unfolds in a stark, snowbound landscape where winter seems endless. Three unnamed figures struggle to find their way through a snow-covered mountainside, grappling with uncertainty, unspoken...

An engrossing novel about the lives in a small Slovak town during the tumultuous twentieth century. In this highly acclaimed novel, Jana Bodnárová offers an engrossing portrayal of a small Slovak town and its inhabitants in the north of the country against the backdrop of the tumultuous history of the twentieth century. As Sara, the protagonist of Necklace/Choker, returns to...

A beautifully written and moving story about the power of tradition and the importance of women's stories. The Bonnet, the first work of prose by Slovak poet Katarína Kucbelová, defies easy pigeonholing: both political and personal, it is a work of literary reportage, a quest for one's roots, a critical exploration of folk art and, not least, social commentary on...

A humorous and deeply human short story collection that celebrates outsiders, dreamers, and the queer. The award-winning Slovak writer Barbora Hrínová's short stories paint an intimate portrait of people searching for happiness in a world that feels increasingly unstable and uncertain. Across the eight stories in this volume, we meet a rich cast of ordinary yet unconventional people trying to...