One of the most original Slovak authors, Balla is known for his dark yet funny stories about lonely, alienated and strange individuals. In 1996 he won the Ivan Krasko Prize for his first collection of short stories, Leptokaria. His 2011 novella V mene otca (In the Name of the Father) won the prestigious Anasoft Litera Prize. In 2015 he published another critically acclaimed novella, Veľká láska (Big Love). In his book Je mŕtvy (Dead), he returns to short-form writing, with provocative stories that challenge its readers. And his most recent book so far, Medzi ruinami (Between the Ruins, 2021), is a fragmentary novel set in a small town full of bizarre characters. Throughout, he remains faithful to his manuscript, an obligatory oscillation between an awareness of "a generally desperately empty life" and an ephemeral belief "in the possibility of some other way of being."
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