Obession and unfulfilled desire in the Best European Fiction

It's hard (for me) to know whether it's his taste or whether this collection is truly representative of the best European fiction but least from the first few stories in Aleksander Hemon's collection "Best European Fiction 2012" we can make a few general observations: European short fiction is edgier and more ambitious in form than American short fiction - or at least it seems so. This anthology is organized in an unsual way - thematically - so I can't generalize too much as the first four stories were about love and desire - so although I think so far this collection doesn't have much to say about war or politics or the social trends that are rocking Europe (immigration, assimilation, sudden wealth, economic crises, terrorism), it does seem that these push the edges of form and narrative voice in ways that American fiction doesn't: compare this with any of the recent Best American story collections and you'll see the difference: most American stories anthologized are pretty much straight realism/naturalism, although they tend to be about outsiders, loners, and losers. First 4 stories in this collection: a failed artist who develops an obsessive crush on man sitting for portrait; a person living in youthful poverty in contemporary Croatian city and falls for a girl at a club (surprise ending - for some - in this story); story narrated by a dog, who watches his owners despair over lost love (another bit of a surprise ending, which I think brings on a wrong note - should have been simpler), and widow (only story so far about an older person) who develops an obsession with a much younger Sicilian actress - note that each of these, to varying degrees, is about obsession and unfulfilled desire.