Olga Beshlei – The FSB and my Big Pink Dildo

new publication

Chapter from her book published by Matthes&Seitz Berlin

It is not at all difficult for Olga Beshlei’s heroine to find emancipated soulmates in any Western city who have suffered similarly. Except perhaps the panic about trying to hide a huge pink dildo before a house search by the secret service FSB should be considerably less outside Russia. One chapter from her book MY WEIRD LOVER FROM THE FSB has been published by Matthes&Seitz Berlin within the dekoder book 2019.

„Everyone in the FSB will read it and roll over laughing.“ ALEKSANDR LYCHAGIN

Leonid Yuzefovich – Winter Road

new sales

Armenian rights sold to ALRD
Mongolian rights sold to ONON

By using this hardly known episode of the very last battle of the Russian Revolution in his twice award-winning narrative non-fiction book, Yuzefovich is able to portray deeper human motives: the love, passion and individual suffering that are buried in the ideology are revealed and the characters shown to be both oppressor and victim. In the end each individual is responsible for the Russian tragedy.

7 languages sold so far: Armenian, Bulgarian, French, Mongolian, Polish, Serbian, Latvian

Viktor Martinovich – Revolution

new publication

German translation published by Voland & Quist

In Belarus holding a print copy of Viktor Martinovich’s novel REVOLUTION in hand has become a symbol of protest. Recently 600 copies of the Belarusian edition of REVOLUTION have been confiscated by the police, the publisher had been arrested for some while. REVOLUTION is not about the protests in Minsk, but about subservience to the corruption of power.

Read an interview in English with Martinovich about the actual situation in Belarus.

Aleksei Nikitin – Bat Ami for Ukraine

new sale

Ukrainian translation rights sold to Phoenix Publishing

Ukrainian Jewish boxing champion Ilya Goldinov has just come second place in the Soviet All-Union championships when World War II breaks out. After the German invasion of Ukraine, he joins the partisan fighters in the forests behind the front line. Only by lucky coincidence does he survive and he joins the regular army as a soldier before being sent by the Ukrainian secret service on a life-threatening mission to occupied Kiev.

Aleksei Nikitin’s novel BAT-AMI. FROM THE FACE OF FIRE is not a documentary novel, but its story – inspired in part by the author‘s family history – is based on Ukrainian files relating to 1941-42 secret service operations. The novel tells the true story of the famous boxer Goldinov, because the rumours that were still circulating in Kiev after the war have largely proven to be false, as has old Yad Vashem version of the events.

Natalia Stepanova – Russian Healing Spells

new publication

Polish translation published by Studio Astropsychologii

Natalia Stepanova is one of the very few Russian shamans and magicians who are publishing their spells and practical witchcraft advices in writing. But she herself as a person is trying to avoid any publicity in the media. Her books are for all who are interested in the original tradition of Russian folk magic. Magic means above all – a certain rhythm of life, a certain daily routine, the observance of certain rules, pilgrimages, work in the forest and other places of power.

Leonid Yuzefovich – Kazaroza

new publication

historical detective novel published by China Radio Film & TV Press

 

Set in 1920, civil war is still raging in Russia. The famous St Petersburg singer Zinaida Kazaroza arrives in a city in the Ural. The members of the local Esperanto Club invite her to sing. Then she is shot under mysterious circumstances during the concert. The journalist and revolutionary Svechnikov, a secret admirer of Kazaroza, together with the poet Vagin, undertake to trace her murderer.

«One often hears the question: we know Pelevin, Sorokin, and Akunin. Are there not any other good writers? Yes there are. Leonid Yuzefovich.» KONSERVATOR

Aleksei Ivanov – Heart of Parma

new sale

Serbian translation rights sold to Čarobna Knjiga Belgrad

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).

Oleg Zaionchkovski – Happiness is possible

new sale

Bulgarian rights sold to Aviana

„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

Mikhail Vizel – Pushkin in Quarantine

new representation

nothing resembles our year 2020 more than Pushkin‘s quarantine of 1830

Cholera is raging in Russia and parts of the country are in lockdown. The Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, already famous at the time, is stuck in Boldino for three months. The planned wedding with his fiancée Natalia Goncharova has to be postponed. He tries twice in vain to get to her in Moscow. Pushkin is worried. And with jealousy that the bride might jump off him. He is furious because, despite bribing the police, he is unable to bypass the roadblocks to Moscow.

Mikhail Vizel in his book PUSHKIN.BOLDINO.QUARANTINE reconstructs the exciting chronology of the Boldino autumn in a witty, amusing and analytically accurate way. Commenting letters from Pushkin to his bride, we are introduced to his love affair, which has to pass an extraordinary stress test during lockdown. We can not only chronologically follow Pushkin‘s passionate ups and downs during quarantine, but finally experience them with compassion based on our own Covid experience.