new publication
Spanish language edition published by Acantilado
Ivan Bunin’s diary on the Russian Revolution CURSED DAYS is probably one of the most famous works by the first Russian Nobel Prize winner for literature.
Ivan Bunin’s diary on the Russian Revolution CURSED DAYS is probably one of the most famous works by the first Russian Nobel Prize winner for literature.
Anna Starobinets‚ documentary novel LOOK AT HIM is a groundbreaking memoir about the devastating loss of her unborn son to a fatal birth defect. The memoir describes her struggle to find sympathy, community, and psychological support for herself and her family.
The book ignited a firestorm when first published in Russia, prompting both high praise and severe condemnation for the author’s willingness to discuss long-taboo issues of women’s agency over their own bodies.
The novel is set during the tragic few weeks in June-July 1941, when the German army in a sudden attack defeated the Red Army and within a few days occupied Lithuania. Grigori Kanovich’s writing is informed by his deep native knowledge of the Lithuanian countryside where he grew up in the 1930s, but he is no less intimately familiar with the Russian and Jewish cultures. Yet his real interest as a writer is in exploring the fundamental and universal ethical conflict between good and evil, which transcends the limits of concrete space and time.
«DEVILSPEL is a moving and elegant novel of fine character portraits, told in restrained but beautiful prose, set in a small town in Lithuania at a watershed moment of history, when ethnic cleansing and the Holocaust enter the lives of the local Jews and non-Jews alike, dividing neighbours and families into persecuted and persecutors.»
ROSIE GOLDSMITH, Chair of the Judges EBRD Literature Prize
After Viktor Martinovich’s novel REVOLUTION had been adapted for the stage (after SchauSpielHaus Hamburg in 2022) also by Münchner Volkstheater in March 2023 (shown again in January 2024), the author will now read from the book and have a discussion about it on stage at the Münchner Volkstheater on Wednesday November 15 at 8pm.
Also in November at the Münchner Volkstheater there will be the premiere of FABIAN ODER: DER GANG VOR DIE HUNDE in memory of Erich Kästner with text contributions by Viktor Martinovich and others.
Several of Zaza Burchuladze’s novels had been shortlisted for this most important literary award in Georgia. But only now his new novel ZOORAMA finally received this most prestigious award.
Congratulation!
In Belarus holding a print copy of Viktor Martinovich’s novel REVOLUTION in hand has become a symbol of protest. During the protests on the streets of Minsk copies of the Belarusian edition of REVOLUTION have been confiscated by the police, the publisher had been arrested for some while. Although: REVOLUTION is not about the protests in Minsk, but about subservience to the corruption of power. Which is an equally threatening topic for Lukashenko and his regime.
Aleksei Nikitin’s short novel THE ORDERLY FROM INSTITUTSKA STREET is the story of two friends from Kyiv, the poet Yurka Nezgoda and the artist Nikolai Umanets. In the 1990’s Nezgoda and Umanets were promi- nent members of the bohemian Kyiv art scene. In the end the heroes meet again on Kyiv’s Maidan Square. Umanets is with the protesters, while Nezgoda tries to stay neutral. But it is Nezgoda who gets pulled into the swirl of events in the novel. He dies as an orderly, trying to move the wounded to safety under fire. Umanets watches his friend die on live television.
In 2019, five years after Maidan, the novel was the only Russian-language novel to be included in the list of “Best texts about Maidan.”
“Maidan, as a lived experience, when the feeling of history being created, is perceived deeply and directly. This made The Orderly a deeper and wiser text than a mere projection of a series of lost generation.“
LITCENTR
Viktor Martinovich’s novel MOVA seems to be a spy thriller but of course it is about politics: Minsk in the year 2044, a provincial town in the north-west of the United States of China and Russia. Family and love are considered to be out-dated concepts, spiritual needs are fulfilled by consuming and advertising. Despite draconian punishments a particular drug somehow and repeatedly manages to get into the country: mova.
«MOVA is funny. MOVA is sad. MOVA is full of surprises. It is bizarre, it is a thriller, a nightmare – and intoxicating. A powerfully un-cut drug in the form of a book, a fix of which can only be heartily recommended.» DEUTSCHLANDRADIO KULTUR
The novel is set during the tragic few weeks in June-July 1941, when the German army in a sudden attack defeated the Red Army and within a few days occupied Lithuania. Grigori Kanovich’s writing is informed by his deep native knowledge of the Lithuanian countryside where he grew up in the 1930s, but he is no less intimately familiar with the Russian and Jewish cultures. Yet his real interest as a writer is in exploring the fundamental and universal ethical conflict between good and evil, which transcends the limits of concrete space and time.
«DEVILSPEL is a moving and elegant novel of fine character portraits, told in restrained but beautiful prose, set in a small town in Lithuania at a watershed moment of history, when ethnic cleansing and the Holocaust enter the lives of the local Jews and non-Jews alike, dividing neighbours and families into persecuted and persecutors.»
ROSIE GOLDSMITH, Chair of the Judges EBRD Literature Prize
We are happy to announce a new book being written by Sergii Rudenko, the author of „Zelenskyi without make-up“. Manuscript of ANATOMY OF HATE. PUTIN AND UKRAINE will be finished by January 2024.
Russia‘s war against Ukraine is the most important event in the life of President Vladimir Putin. He staked everything on this war: the future of Russia, his political career, his well- being and even his life. He has already dedicated his entire presidency to trying to conquer Ukraine. For him, the “Ukrainian question” became, without exaggeration, a matter of life and death. Why?
Putin‘s hatred of Ukraine rests on a good foundation – the Ukrainophobia that has prevailed in Russia for centuries. Telling us even more about the history of this decision-making, which is also rooted in Putin‘s personal relationship with Ukraine, this book is an almost exclusive look behind the scenes of this relationship.