Birth date

28. 04. 1960  [en] Devínska Nová Ves  

Fields of interest

próza

Briefly about author

Pišťanek is a prose writer who managed to come out with a new type of prose at the beginning of the 1990's. He began publishing at the end of the 1980's in Slovenské pohľady, the best literary magazine in those years. His novelistic debut, Rivers of Babylon was an unusual success with the readers as well as the critics. The author describes what was then a non-traditional topic for the Slovak literature - the Bratislava underground - using very expressive language and a variety of stylistic levels. The characters that fill his novel are small-time crooks and bigime entrepreneurs-privatizers as well as prostitutes. The only ambition of these people is to make their life more pleasant which, in their understanding, means to cheat, exploit, or destroy the others. In this world, one person manages to make his way to the top, a man from the village, the main character Racz, due to his unswerving pursuit of power and money. Somewhere in the background of these activities, the revolutionary changes of 1989 (the break-up of the Soviet Empire, the liberation of Eastern Europe) unfold. Inspiration for this novel comes from the para-literature and Pišťanek stresses the rectilinear narrative and fast-paced plot. While he presents the situation in an impersonal, laconic manner, he is precise in his analysis of the actual situation, even though the subject of his work may be rather bizarre and grotesque. The Young Dônč is a collection of three long short stories: Debutante, The Young Dônč, and Music. In the story The Young Dônč we encounter the topic of the degeneration of the Dônč family caused not only by alcoholism of all its members, but also by its accompanying feature: the total ignorance and disinterest in anything that goes on outside the territory of their own home. The author parodies here some texts of previous periods, nevertheless, his irony is aimed at the present. Even his story Music, with its grotesque elements, is a precise sociological probe of the "normalized" life of the Seventies. Pišťanek followed-up his successful novel by publishing Rivers of Babylon 2, or Wooden Village, and Rivers of Babylon 3, or Fredy's End. This trilogy is so unusual, provocative and controversial that it will take Slovak criticism and literature in general some time to come to terms with it. One should also not overlook his fascinating The Tales of Vlado the Great and The New Tales of Vlado the Great. These are satirical tales that combine the charm of Hassidic fairy tales, Sufi instructional tales, and Slovak folktales with Buddhist koans in
a transcendent manner, so that even the intended target was said to have enjoined reading them.

Briefly about production

prose:
Rivers of Babylon (1991), The Young Dônč (Mladý Dônč, 1993), Rivers of Babylon 2,
or Wooden Village (Rivers of Babylon 2, alebo Drevená dedina, 1994), The Tales of Vlado the Great (Skazky o Vladovi, 1995), The New Tales of Vlado the Great (Nové skazky o Vladovi, 1998), Rivers of Babylon 3, or Fredy's End (Rivers of Babylon 3, alebo Fredyho koniec, 1999)

Biography for author

Born 28 April 1960 in Devínska Nová Ves near Bratislava. He worked in different jobs as a worker and after 1989 in an advertising agency. At present time he is the chief editor of the internet magazine inZine. He lives in Devínska Nová Ves.

about author

When the objects of Pišťanek's irony become his faithful readers (it is generally known that in order to understand irony one needs a certain degree of intelligence), Pišťanek's Tales will be taught to the children in Slovak schools (on the basis of
a decision by some national-government institution)as a compulsory reading.

Author about himself

I am certain that the literary critics have already come to terms with myself and I am surprised how positively I am evaluated by the people from whom I would have never expected it. I do not try to think of myself as a writer. At the moment I am not devoting myself to literature that much. I am not stylizing myself as a classic. Maybe it is true that, as Dušan Mitana once told me, my books fulfilled for a given moment the role of some sort of entertainment and that is probably all. The erotic element is there because I myself am interested in it, as I am an erotic person and know exactly what turns people on. But as for some profound meanings, those are beyond me.

I cannot imagine writing something based on the intellectual milieu, publishing house, or a video distribution company, though you would meet fewer intellectuals there than you would in the Slovnaft oil refinery. Then again, I have always been interested in outsiders, in people with a tremendous desire to conform and join in, but this desire was what made them different from the ordinary people. If a person like that desires to become one with the others, he becomes something special and that is the case of my characters, the saxophone players, stage hands, and so on.

Sample

THE ALES OF VLADO THE GREAT FOR CHILDREN AND GROWN-UPS