Marakéš. Šicke me naše!

Marakéš is an imaginary village somewhere between Alaska and the Sahara, but most likely somewhere in the east of Slovakia. It is populated by peculiar characters such as Janko Huj, who proclaims the end of the world, Mr Šalamaha, whose hair suddenly grows to half a metre in length, Laco Kuľbaga, who moves in mysterious ways from one place to the next, and Pišta Perdzej, who has befriended UFOs. In a word, this is what Marquéz’s Macondo would be like, were it located in some forgotten corner of the Slovak countryside. Reissued now, nearly 20 years after the untimely demise of the author, who has since acquired a near-mythical status, the stories (or story-fancies, as the author himself referred to them) set in this magical place have remained surprisingly fresh and bring a blazing literary imagination into contemporary Slovak literature.