New apartments, new rooms

In the short story collection New Flats, New Rooms, Václav Maxmilián introduces us to a world that defies clear definition and the individual descriptions of situations seem to retain a special mystery: do they communicate with each other, or is it just an illusion? The characters seem to mirror each other, changing names only as masks, their lives overlapping and interpenetrating, but their discussions beginning and ending without a chance to outgrow themselves and turn into a coherent story that takes away their freedom. Doesn't it all take place in the same city after all? Or even in the same house? "The current obsession with period and locally situated stories (whether in Czech or world literature) perhaps leaves room for the kind of abstract writing I am attempting here," the author says of his intention.