Twenty-Two Fragments

Some moments pass quietly, while others leave a deep mark

An interpreter takes part in a Czech orchestra's tour of Japan, which takes an unexpected turn. The wife of a wealthy businessman is planning a celebration for her husband in Calabria, but a misunderstanding with a taxi driver has surprising consequences. A teenager is returning with her parents and aunt from a funeral in a Czech village when their car runs out of petrol—and then a strange, distinguished gentleman appears. Someone, sometime, somewhere…

We meet the heroes and heroines of Bianca Bellová's short stories at a moment when something significant is happening in their lives. It is just a moment, a fragment of a story of which we do not know how it began, and sometimes we do not even find out how it will end. Bianca Bellová is a masterful storyteller who skilfully draws the reader into the action and, even in the short format of a story, once again demonstrates her linguistic brilliance and stylistic sophistication. Anyone who immerses themselves in her unmistakable world will be rewarded with a whole range of emotions, as well as humour, and sometimes even a horror-like atmosphere.

Bellová can sense those subtle tectonic shifts beneath our everyday lives, which we at first have no idea about, but in retrospect we know have deeply affected our lives.
— Jonáš Zbořil on the book These Fragments, Seznam Zprávy

I enjoy playing with short stories that can evoke an immediate reaction in the reader in a small space—sadness, disgust, or laughter.
— Bianca Bellová, author