Živý Bič by Milo Urban

A stark, socially acute portrait of life in a provincial Slovak community, tracing how economic hardship, petty ambition, fear and hypocrisy shape and eventually corrode the lives of ordinary people; through interwoven personal stories and sharp observational detail the novel exposes moral compromises, social tensions and the destructive consequences of cowardice, greed and conformity, offering a critique of both individuals and the institutions that sustain their suffering.