In her novel ‘Fear and Obsessions,’ the narrative is nonlinear and multilayered, intertwining real and imagined reality. The protagonist, a writer from St. Petersburg, is traveling to an international conference. Her plane makes an emergency landing at an unknown airport. Unexpected twists and turns give birth to new literary characters in her imagination and evoke long-forgotten events from...

Having spent 27 years behind the glass walls of his enclosure in a shopping mall, Ivan has grown accustomed to humans watching him. He hardly ever thinks about his life in the jungle. Instead, Ivan occupies himself with television, his friends Stella and Bob, and painting. But when he meets Ruby, a baby elephant taken from the wild, he is forced to see their home, and his art, through new...

Fifteen new stories, specially written for the collection, by popular Russian writers: Dmitry Danilov, Alexey Salnikov, Anna Matveeva, Grigory Sluzhitel, Daria Bobyleva, Sergey Shargunov, and many others. – In the wonderful company of contemporary writers, the reader will discover new and recall favorite Moscow routes. – The collection opens with an excerpt from a poem by Dmitry Danilov and...

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...

Ilya Venyavkin, author of ‘The Temple of War,’ explored the life trajectories and ideological perspectives of several public figures who played a key role in Russia's transformation from the unstable democracy of the early 1990s to the deeply militarized and chauvinistic autocracy of the early 2020s. Satirist Mikhail Zadornov, Army General Sergei Surovikin, security officer Nikolai...

‘House on the Line of Fire’ is a story told by a fearless man who has been in prison and in high office, who knows the value of compromise and human relationships, who remained in his home until the very end, but who, even after being forced to leave, never ceased to love it. The book offers a complete and vivid picture of life in Donbas in the 21st century: clan wars and property division,...

Best friends Eva and Nika haven't seen or spoken for ten years, but now they're finally reunited—and forced to immediately go on the run. On the long journey from Rostov-on-Don to Vladivostok, they'll have to face FSB agents, gangsters, inclement weather, disease, hunger, and—most terrifying of all—their own past.

His new book, ‘The Dark Side of the Earth,’ is a deeply personal reconstruction of the last thirty years of the Soviet Union, chronicling its journey from the dawn of the space age, the peak of the Soviet empire, to stagnation, and then to perestroika, a series of crises, and collapse. It's also a book about the people, contemporaries, and participants in those events. Among them are Mikhail...

Konstantin Gaaze's book, ‘Where Dictatorships Are Drifting,’ chronicles the historical evolution of Russian autocracy, culminating in a full-scale invasion of a neighboring country. In pondering why Russia attacked Ukraine, the author dismisses two well-worn theories—the country's eternal historical fate and the sinister personality of its ruler. Instead, he presents the results of his...

‘50’ is a book by Meduza film critic Anton Dolin, published to mark the author's anniversary. The collection includes 50 texts written between 2001 and 2022 for the magazine Iskusstvo Kino (only one article, on Paul Thomas Anderson's ‘Battle After Battle,’ was written specifically for the book). Dolin began his professional career writing for IK, and in 2017, he became head of the editorial...

Experiencing unrequited love, the heroine of Daria Traiden's novel buys a village house in Belarus and begins renovating it. Transforming and inhabiting her own space on her native land is her strategy for preserving meaning. Reflecting on body, identity, poverty, violence, and family, the author searches for and reinvents her roots. Equally about love and home, the book explores the...

Andrey Dudko's novel is a psychedelic parody of autofiction. The protagonist, a fake alter ego of the writer, abandons his family and job and retreats to the provincial town of Slonim to create a literary masterpiece in the solitude of his empty family home. However, alcohol, casual sex, and the phantoms of his childhood haunting the city hinder his creativity. Instead of writing, the...