Co myslíš, co vidí – Machoninová Alena (2026)

What happens when you bring home a dog from the street? You feel that you have rescued him, but what does he think? He declares war on you, perhaps because the country you share has itself been at war for some time, and all your lives suddenly unfold in constant tension and motion. The dog would never have needed any of this, you begin to realise. He could have lived peacefully on the grounds of a failing factory, but you decided to save him. All that remains is to ask how he sees the situation and, together with the protagonists of Alena Machoninová’s novel, repeat the question: “What do you think he sees?” This Czech-language novel is about coexistence, more between species than between people, and about how it often fails through a lack of empathy and an inability to accept that another being, whether human or animal, perceives reality differently. As in Helle (2023), the author blurs the boundaries between genres and between reality and fiction, presenting a world seen through other works of art. Essays on books, performances and paintings hold together the fragmenting narrative, with figures including Beuys’s Little John, Márai’s Csutora, Vladimov’s Ruslan and Virginia Woolf’s Flush. More than dogs, they all explore understanding others.