Instalace strachu – Zink Rui (2024)

What if fear were a service, in the interest of the country and progress, delivered right to your home? The doorbell rings. A woman hides her son in the bathroom and goes to open the door. "Good day, young lady, we have come to install fear for you. And as you will see, it is first-class." Two men waiting on the other side are technicians. And as part of fulfilling a decree, they install fear just like you would have cable television installed. Both uninvited visitors burst into the living room and launch a disturbing performance: they alternately harass the poor woman and paint a horrific picture of the evils of our time, full of epidemics, natural disasters, poverty, war, torture, or terrorism. They embellish their narrative with terrifying stories that play on humanity's primal fears: fear of others, illness, or madness. Gradually, they create an atmosphere of growing tension in the room and draw the woman along with the reader into their paranoid delusion. The novel "Installation of Fear," which won the prestigious French Utopiales Award for Best Sci-Fi Novel, is a clever allegory about human society, which has always been easiest to control through fear.