Svině – Soltész Arpád (2019)

In the Picturesque Little Country beneath the Small Mountains, people sometimes disappear while others unexpectedly make dizzying careers for themselves, and the two events are connected. Evil openly eats away at the country, while its victims refuse to resist or accept the truth, believing that the powerful would never do such things and that it could not happen to them. A drug-dependent teenage girl disappears from a resocialisation centre, but no one who matters misses her. A talented politician becomes Chairman and takes control of the entire country, though he cannot control his instincts or, eventually, his own decisions. A small-time black-marketeer wants to become a major player, treating people like chess pieces, without realising that he is not playing chess but noughts and crosses. A rumour surrounds a mafia hitman who supposedly dug a pit large enough for an underground shopping-centre garage, though in truth everyone digs their own pit. An ardent neo-Nazi loses a friend in the forest, but finds the love of his life, a good friend, his dream job and finally the truth, which takes everything away from him again. A young analyst becomes a rising star in journalism and faces a brilliant future if he can survive. The characters’ stories portray a system where there are no boundaries between the mafia and politics, or between crime and the law. Life is worthless, death is a commodity, and the state is controlled by the base instincts of highly placed criminals. The author presents a terrifying fiction that could easily become a Slovak reality.