Goodreads asked Samir Satam:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Samir Satam The idea behind my most recent book 'Litost: Sliced Stories' comes from a state of mind we all find ourselves in, at some point or another. All the stories in this book portray the state of being in various degrees of litost. Though the stories are different in terms of plot and setting, the mood of litost is common throughout the book.

I first came across this word 'litost' in Milan Kundera's beautiful book 'The Book of Laughter and Forgetting'. It immediately peaked my curiosity to think that there is a word in Czech for a mix of emotions felt around the world. Yet, there is no specific word for it in any other language!

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