Ramil Khalikov – Brodsky, Basmanova, The Third

 new representation

About Joseph Brodsky’s muse, his true love

Next year will mark 30 years since Joseph Brodsky’s death in New York in 1996. Several books about him will surely be published to mark the occasion. But who knows his only muse and true love? Literary scholars agree that his relationship with Marina Basmanova was crucial to Brodsky’s life. The vast majority of his love poems are dedicated to her (M.B.).

Basmanova is still alive today and will be 100 years old in three years. But to this day, she – and a Third – remain the traitors who stabbed the poet in the back at the most difficult moment of his life.

Ramil Khalikov, author of Tatar origin and winner of the Platonov Prize, has now published his book BRODSKY, BASMANOVA, THE THIRD about this relationship. His fictionalized story, based on true events, focuses on the decisive years. Khalikov’s research and conversations with contem-porary witnesses gave him reason to consider the complicated twists and turns of their relationship from a significantly different perspective than before.

Viktor Martinovich – The Good Always Wins – in German

new publication

German edition published by Voland&Quist

Voland&Quist has already published 3 novels by Viktor Martinovich. His latest novel GOOD ALWAYS WINS was impossible to publish in original in Belarus or Russia. So the German publication is the first.

Summer 2020. Mass protests against Lukashenko‘s regime out on the streets of Minsk. Inside the State Theater the rehearsals for a contemporary play about the Inquisition process against Joan of Arc. Matvei has only a small supporting role. The big role in his life awaits him elsewhere. Matvei has to save the cat of his beloved former teacher from her apartment, because she was sentenced to prison for a critical social media post. When he finds himself in a trial he meets a punk poet, Lady Di, a forgotten princess, who is also on trial and manages to convince the judge to acquit her by speaking boldly. She wants to make the world a better place, her weapon is words.

Aleksei Nikitin – Bat Ami, In the Face of Fire – in Italian

new publication

Italian language edition published by Voland

Aleksei Nikitin’s novel BAT-AMI, IN THE FACE OF FIRE is not a documentary novel, but its story – inspired in part by the author‘s family history – is based on files relating to 1941-1942 secret service operations from the archives of the Ukrainian Secret Service. These sources enabled the author to tell the true story of the famous boxer Goldinov. Because the widespread theories about what happened to him – the rumours that were still circulating in Kyiv after the war – have largely proven to be false, as has old Yad Vashem version of events. The descriptions of Ukraine’s complex conflicts involving an overpowering Russian brother state, the Soviet secret service, German occupation, partisans and patriotic nationalist freedom fighters cast their shadows even onto the Ukraine of today.

The novel has been chosen by Ukrainian PEN Club among the Best Books of the Year 2021.

Aleksei Ivanov – The Geographer has drunk the Globe – in Chinese

new publication

Chinese translation published by Neo-Cogito

In the Russian province of the 90s a young teacher fights with the children of the new generation. He has been assigned to the most rebellious class. The „geography teacher“ and the teenagers, who are ready to break him, first sit in the walls of the classroom, but then outside the walls they together experience an adventure of comradeship and initiation.

Aleksei Ivanov’s novel THE GEOGRAPHER HAS DRUNK THE GLOBE pumps new blood into the channels of emotional perception through literature and lets many readers again – literally as the first time – feel very simple and familiar things: winter, love, wind, trust, loneliness, the smell of cigarette smoke, the taste of vodka, the headache of a hangover.“ GALINA YUZEFOVICH