In Vienna, every second building looks like it was built for a king, the waiters who serve your coffee wear tuxedos, and public transport is not just efficient and cheap, the council pays musicians to play Mozart in the carriages. But in the stories of Serbian author Barbi Marković, set in the Austrian city and its surroundings, there’s something not quite right about the place.
In Minihorror, the 44-year-old’s very strange and very addictive short story collection, horrifying things lurk behind splendid baroque facades. A guest at a New Year’s Eve rooftop party discovers a secret passageway leading her into a parallel universe in the building next door. A man bites into a delicious looking bar of Alpine chocolate to discover it is infested with fleshy white maggots. A woman visits her boyfriend’s family in the countryside and discovers they are all made of cookie dough.
