In the tentacles of murumuru

Fluidity, volatility, chaos, confusion, fragmentation, uncertainty, anxiety, crisis, polarisation – these are words we often use to describe the world today. When literary critic and journalist Jan Bělíček was thinking about which word best captures our present day, the strange expression 'murmur' suddenly jumped out at him. It can be hard to get your bearings in the hum of the murmur. How does contemporary fiction react to it? Is literature lagging behind reality, or can we find answers in today's prose on how to escape the murmur's tentacles?

In his distinctive reader of contemporary fiction, Jan Bělíček explores themes like gender, anxiety, and race, seeking their reflection in the works of current authors such as Elena Ferrante, Karl Ove Knausgård, Édouard Louis, and Sally Rooney.

Jan Bělíček
(b. 1986) is a literary critic and journalist. He studied philosophy and Czech language and literature at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University. He is the editor-in-chief of the online daily Alarm.cz, which he co-founded in 2013. His articles on literature, politics, and culture have appeared in the daily E15, Salon Práva, Respekt, on Czech Radio Vltava, and in other media outlets. He consistently examines phenomena at the intersection of art, society, and politics. At the turn of 2019 and 2020, he began publishing the literary podcast V chapadlech murmuru (In the Tentacles of the Murmur) on the visual arts platform Institute of Anxiety, from which the book of the same name is derived.