‘If you stare at the dead for too long, they’ll start talking to you.’ The events of Alexey Polyarinov’s novel unfold in a world where, thirty years after a catastrophe, ‘cadavers’—frozen figures of dead children—have appeared across the country. The protagonists, Matvey and Dasha, set out on an expedition through the south to study these mysterious anomalies. Along the way, they discover how the presence of the dead has altered the lives of the living and how the living have grown accustomed to sharing their space with the dead. ‘I wanted to write a book about the end of the world. But not the kind of rapid-fire apocalypse usually depicted in pop culture. I wanted to show a long, agonizing end of the world—where people live inside the apocalypse for years and eventually get used to it.’ — Alexey Polyarinov