The Infernal Machine of Happiness
The 1920s in a fictional Balkan country. The Great War has ended, leaving behind devastation, explosive social tensions, and political radicalization; the anarcho-terrorist organization Weapons of Chaos has been formed; following a coup, a military dictatorship is established, and an assassination is being planned...
Written in the “alternative history” genre, the novel deliberately reorders the historical course of time, reshapes the geopolitical context, transforms events, and invents characters. Thus, in his attempt to create a possible dystopia in the past, he undermines the clichés drummed into us by propaganda.
Inventive, grotesquely ironic, and inimitably provocative, The Infernal Machine of Happiness is a scathing socio-political parody, a tale of the quest for universal happiness embodied in maniacal obsessions, whose clash leads to historical catastrophes and hurls humanity into an existence forcibly emptied of history.
Vladislav Todorov
VLADISLAV TODOROV is a Ph. D. in philosophical sciences. He teaches cinema and literature at the University of Pennsylvania. His first book, "The Adam Complex", was published in Sofia (1991). His second book, "Red Square, Black Square: Organon for Revolutionary Imagination" (1995), was published in the United States. It was followed by "Little Paradox for Theater and Other Figures of Life" and "Chaotic Pendulum: Political Journalism". Todorov had written two screen-ready novels - "Zift" and "Zincographer". The second one was filmed under the title "The Chameleon's Color".
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