Anna Matveeva – Dyatlov Pass

new publication

Latvian edition published by Latvijas Mediji

Anna Matveeva’s novel THE DYATLOV PASS is dedicated to the true story of a group of young students who died under mysterious circumstances as ski tourists on the Dyatlov Pass in the northern Ural mountains in 1959. The exact circumstances of the mysterious deaths on Dyatlov Pass remain unexplained. Accompanying Matveeva’s heroine on her quest for the truth, therefore, the reader returns not only to a brutal past but is also drawn into discovering the truth behind the own life.

“The Dyatlov Pass could signal the start of a new literature just as In Cold Blood by Truman Capote once was for American prose… What I value in Matveeva’s novel is…. that she displays affection for the nine victims, lives with them and thus forces me to see one of them in the youngster sitting next to me in the cafe or in the underground… What I like most about reading this book, however, is the feeling of living through someone else’s tragedy because it is built into and woven into our own lives.”
DMITRI BYKOV

Roman Senchin – Rain in Paris

new sale

Macedonian language rights sold to Makedonika Litera

The sincerity and accuracy of Roman Senchin, the attention to detail in his novel RAIN IN PARIS create the vivid and truthful image of a forty-year-old man and his life in the Russian province. The hero and the reader with him become gradually clear: Without understanding the past, people have no future.

«“Rain in Paris“ is an extraordinarily graceful novel for all the details of everyday life. And with all the acute socio-political content a thoroughly philosophical text.» PAVEL BASINSKI

Olga Slavnikova – The Lighthead

new publication

Arabic translation published by Al Arabi

Ermakov is responsible for climate damage, terror attacks, car accidents, fires and, illness. He needs to end his life voluntarily for the good of mankind. The alpha field will be eradicated only if he commits suicide. The state will make him a posthumous hero, complete with proper compensation as well. Ermakov does not want to, however. The hero in Olga Slavnikova’s novel THE LIGHTHEAD has had too much of a taste of individual freedom and determining his own way of life to be able to sacrifice himself for the reasons of a state. Ermakov is put under pressure and under obvious surveil- lance, the door to his apartment smeared with slogans, his landlady gives him notice, his company demotes him and the mob demonstrates on the street against the man refusing to grant salvation from evil.

With sound, witty punch lines and razor sharp analysis, Slavnikova’s quasi-literary experiment puts archetypal Russian qualities under the conditions of globalisation to the test: individualism versus communism, self versus society, the willingness to make sacrifices versus egoism. What is the Russian soul still worth today?

“A high-tension, entertaining, but absolutely frightening novel devoid of hope.“ VEDOMOSTI

Oleg Zaionchkovski – Happiness is Possible

new sale

Arabic language rights sold to Al Arabi

A writer, living in Moscow with a small dacha on the outskirts of the city, is hard up and so hires himself out to a large publishing company. He is required to deliver a positive novel on time but he has been unable to come up with anything positive since his wife Tamara ran off. She continues to visit the dacha, however, complete with new lover, to whom he is also required to show the best fishing spots. All that the writer is able to produce is notes about the happiness of others.

„Artlessness is the defining aspect of Zaionchkovsky’s diction: the absolute harmony of style and dramatic development seems to be entirely natural, it “happens” to the author in the same way as various events constantly happen to his character.“
ANDREW BROMFIELD

Zaza Burchuladze – Adibas

new publication

Albanian language edition published by Ombra

Zaza Burchuladze’s most famous novel ADIBAS (160 pages, full English translation available for proof reading) describes the 5 days of Russian-Georgian war in a manner completely different to what we have seen in Georgian literature to date. The book is a drastic satire of urban Bohemia in a globalised world where there is no longer any difference between the real and the fake.

Aleksei Ivanov – Heart of Parma

new sale

Czech translation rights sold to Host publishers

Set in the 15th century Aleksei Ivanov’s historical novel HEART OF PARMA is epic, romantic, lush, brutal and wrenchingly mystical: history blends seamlessly with invention, new religion with native magic, passion with death. It is a heady, superbly involving entertainment with battles and churches, captives and crucifixions, pagan temples and human sacrifice, princes and traitors, women who turn into wolves and men who are cursed to live forever. It is, at heart, the tale of conquest and clashing civilizations.

Listen to a 3 minutes youtube clip with the author about his novel (activate English subtitles).

Leonid Yuzefovich – Baron Ungern-Sternberg, Sovereign of the Steppe

new publication

Estonian language edition published by Postimees

The revised edition of Leonid Yuzefovich’s biography on  BARON UNGERN-STERNBERG was the basis for the Estonian translation published recently. This carefully revised and extended version is, moulding an amalgamation of unknown archive material, revealed only recently and not available to historians and journalists in the West, into a book which reads like an historical detective story.

Baron Ungern von Sternberg was a Czarist officer stationed in Siberia. After the Revolution he found himself back in the ranks of the White Army which had been formed in opposition to the Bolsheviks. For a short time in 1920 this was where the converted Buddhist Baron was able to set up his own autocratic empire. His reckless endeavours were inspired by his vision of bringing Ghingis Khan’s Golden Horde back to life. In the end, however, the Bolsheviks managed to defeat his cavalier army too.

The former Moscow correspondent of German weekly DIE ZEIT, Michael Thumann, recently dedicated a full page to the GERMAN GENGHIS KHAN.

Dmitri Danilov – Horizontal Position

new sale

Serbian translation rights sold to Utopia

Dmitri Danilov’s novel HORIZONTAL POSITION was written before Covid crisis catapulted us out of our old routines. Are we hoping and ready to return to them? To answer this question this novel is a very good guide to travel back in time.

We experience precisely one year, going from chapter to chapter – breathless, bored, bothered, relaxed, irritated, amused – and every evening falling exhausted into bed, together with the hero. For a brief moment of sleep in the horizontal position only to then be roused again straightaway, knowing what the daily routine will bring and yet continually full of expectations for the new day.

“Buster Keaton humour with a deadpan expression.“ EX LIBRIS

“Danilov is something of a new Oblomov.“ SERGEI SHARGUNOV

“I would go as far as to say that this book belongs next to Ignatius von Loyola and less alongside Robbe- Grillet and Nathalie Sarraut.“ RADIO LIBERTY

Viktor Remizov – Temptation

new publication

Bulgarian edition has been published by Aviana

At home they were Russian citizens; in Moscow they are just refugees, like Tajiks, Azerbaijanis, Georgians. Viktor Remizov’s novel TEMPTATION tells the story of what it is like to be a migrant in one’s own country. Soberly and without exaggerated literary effects, the author shows us the naked truth about the life of the younger generation in Russia. Nothing seems to be imagined or added.

„Remizov realistically tells the (crossing) paths of a Russian youth with betrayed ideals in a city jungle where everything is allowed. The journey of his two heroines, who are so generous, graceful and lovable, sends a cold shiver down your spine.“
CULTURE LIVRES

Aleksandr Grigorenko – Ilget

new sale

World English translation rights have been acquired by Glagoslav Publishers

Even before publishing Alexander Grigorenko’s previous novel MEBET Glagoslav aquired world English rights also for the next novel ILGET.

„Braving the commercially suicidal subject of „northern ethnicity“ for a second time and even though he uses the same material, Grigorenko successfully manages to produce a completely new novel that in no way resembles MEBET. And which has a moral message.“ GALINA YUZEFOVICH