Riven by the tension between hagiographies, utopias, belief, longing, and grief, the poems of My Heresies catalog a personal and familial history originating in Bucharest, Romania and landing in Birmingham, Alabama. Whether through sardonic takes on old Bible myths or homage paid to French-Romanian poet Paul Celan, Stefanescu's poems are laden in subtext, in imagery sometimes abstract and lush,...

Meeting online seems like a harmless game—until the rules are written by others. Writer Olesya meets a charming stranger. Intellectual riddles, light conversation, promises of support and understanding—it all seems like a rare stroke of luck. But the illusion soon crumbles: behind the attractive appearance and beautiful words lies something far darker. Locked in an unfamiliar house, Olesya...

One rainy night, a young woman carrying a baby enters the forest—and vanishes. Anna Smolina, a volunteer with a search organization and a woman with a difficult past, single-handedly raising her adopted daughter, sets out to find her. Little does Anna suspect that by stepping into the dark forest, she will set off a chain of terrifying events that will threaten her daughter's life, as well as...

A naked beauty steps out the window of an elite high-rise in central Moscow, wearing all her priceless diamonds... But she's a promising figure skater, a contender for world championship medals, the heiress to millions, a woman without any problems! The investigation suspects it's not suicide, but is having trouble classifying the case, as it seems utterly improbable. They have to start with a...

‘You are not respectful enough to your king,’ he said hoarsely, looming over me, ‘and you deserve punishment.’ I ran away from my home to be with my lover. And he lost me at dice. This was the price I paid for my recklessness, a cruel lesson. In a world where lust and passion are the source of power, I became a bargaining chip. There is no justice here, only law, which tries to protect people...

After a brutal attack, Polina can't leave her home—fear and trauma have turned her life into a prison. Her only support in life is her husband, Vlad, who saved her that day and now surrounds her with care and love. But one day, Polina's friend is found murdered: the perpetrator's signature matches her own attack down to the last detail. Vlad urges Polina to remain silent, so as not to attract...

Ostap Bender, the ‘grand strategist,’ is a con man on the make in the Soviet Union during the New Economic Policy (NEP) period. He's obsessed with getting one last big score?a few hundred thousand will do, and heading for Rio de Janeiro, where there are ‘a million and a half people, all of them wearing white pants, without exception.’ When Bender hears the story of Alexandr Koreiko, an...

Reading these poems and looking at these photographs, it feels like you've seen it all somewhere else. A small town no one dreams of visiting, with a train station and a bus stop. A fellow traveler with a bag of London bags packed by his wife. An apartment rental ad: a TV always by the window, a sofa, two armchairs against the wall. Little things that never seem important, but only they can...

The main character, Adam Tsisowski, is seventeen. He was nicknamed the Devil not for his bad behavior, but for the fact that he knows how to solve very complex, seemingly unsolvable problems. And he is not a devil at all, but a sincere, honest, responsible and brave guy. The events – mysterious, adventurous, detective – begin in Warsaw, and then move to a noble estate near Vilnius. Adas and his...