Bazaar at the spotted zebra

Basil Vega, a genius inventor, returns to his hometown of Mont-Venus and opens an atypical shop called The Bazaar of the Spotted Zebra. It offers funny mechanical toys for everyone, regardless of age, to delight and develop thinking and personality. Creations full of humour and poetry, real triggers of emotions, feelings and reflections. His shop is a place to live and dream. Enough to stir the waters of a small conventional town.

One of his first customers is Arthur – A frustrated 15-year-old who doesn't fit in in small-town life and finds his creative expression and anger at the system he doesn't fit into in spray painting, much to the despair of his mother Giulia. Giulia is a talented perfumer, a single mother, still unable to move on with her life two years after her husband left her. In addition, she is demotivated from her stereotypical job at a deodorant company. Basil becomes quite unlikely friends with Arthur and later with his mother Giulia.

Their relationship strengthens after Louisa, the other protagonist of the story, catches Arthur in the act – with stencil and spray in hand – and turn him in to the police. Basil helps Arthur solve the problem with the police (and the court) and offers him a job in his shop. Louise (a respected citizen, editor of the local newspaper and a narrow-minded critic of anything that deviates from the norm) immediately launches a manhunt for Basil and his shop, blacklisting the Bazaar as a place she does not recommend visiting on behalf of the local newspaper and her association Civilism. And her scheming doesn't end there…

How do we come out of this mess okay? Surprisingly, and in the style of Chocolate, all the characters touch their inner sides, hidden frustrations, weaknesses and pains at different times, and finally they are able to admit them and thus free themselves. And finally, they will see others more leniently and can start anew. If anyone needs a really useful and clear guide on how to transform their life for the better, just flip through Basil's diary at the end of the book…

It is published in a translation by Petra Bernatová.