On the Threshold

Now available in India. Forthcoming in the rest of the world in November 2024.

Stories that entwine the mundane with the mystical, written by a cult favorite Slovak writer.

An unhappily married woman is impregnated by her elderly neighbor who lives in a building across the street and with whom she has never had any physical contact. Just as his attention creates life within her, his own life waxes and wanes with her gaze and attention.

A man finds himself trapped in a pub on a sweltering afternoon after refusing to buy a beer with his cigarettes. Guarded by a vigilante bartender and his beer-obsessed patrons, his every attempt at escape is foiled until their life-giving elixir, the beer, runs out.

This collection introduces English-language readers to the work of Dušan Mitana, a cult figure in contemporary Central European literature. In Mitana’s stories, appearing in English for the first time, the rational and the irrational are indistinguishable. His tales infect a banal, quotidian realism with mystical and supernatural distortions. Tinged with Hitchcockian paranoia and full of unexpected turns, the seventeen stories collected here offer a glimpse into Mitana’s trademark absurdist style.

‘Strange situations, homicidal tendencies, and ill-fated love affairs animate the stories in Slovak writer Mitana’s bold English-language debut. Mitana fearlessly explores death, obsession, and sexual desire, making the most of mundane scenarios to reveal the complexities of human nature. It’s a worthy introduction to a great talent.’—Publisher's Weekly