František Antonín Count Kostka of Kostka is a descendant of a noble family living in New York. After the fall of the communist regime, he returns to Bohemia with his American wife Vivien and daughter Marie (III.) to take over the family seat. In addition to the castle, the count's family ‘inherits’ the staff: a reactionary castellan, a hypochondriac gardener and a cook who likes to click and...

In its simplest form, Valerian Pidmohylny’s novel 'The City' is the story of an ambitious young man who moves from the village to Kyiv and builds a new life there. He is often compared to the hero of Maupassant’s 'A Dear Friend' and the self-confident and unscrupulous conquerors of social heights from Balzac’s stories. However, for Pidmohylny, it is not just a career story. He places the...

In Colson Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor: engineers and conductors operate a secret network of actual tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora embarks on a harrowing flight from one state to the next, encountering, like Gulliver, strange yet familiar iterations of her own world at each stop.

Motanka is a collection of short fiction by Ukrainian writers about women's experiences of war and the incredible powers that manifest themselves in special circumstances. Fantasy, magical realism, steampunk, and even post-apocalypse; events that take place both in ancient times and in the days of modern war, in recognizable worlds or completely fantastic reality. These are twelve stories...

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.

Northern Europe, late 2020s. Russia, engulfed in civil war, continues to send refugees. Former employees of Russia's main propaganda factory and people who suffered because of them are fleeing the new 'Moscow government' and militia gangs. New migrants are predictably not welcome abroad, and some of them are being hunted down. Prose writer and journalist Konstantin Zarubin (Tales of L-skikh...

July 2014, Donbass. A student named Zhanna returns to her native mining village from Kharkov to look after her dying mother. At the same time, their young neighbor nicknamed Valet and an elderly secret service officer named Korol arrive from Moscow - both on assignment from the Russian military command. Something terrible and irreparable is about to happen. But this is not the first time...

'Pets' by Zhenya Berkovich is a prison fairy tale; everything told in it is the pure truth, but all the characters are fictitious and the coincidences are accidental. The action takes place in Tyurmyau, where cats, rats, dogs, cockroaches, a crow and, of course, people have to get along, but this is not a story about people. The main character, Volny Kotan, goes through a series of tests to...

Gazdanov is primarily known for his novels An Evening at Claire’s, Night Roads, and The Return of the Buddha. Bunin and Gorky highly praised the novel An Evening at Claire’s. Critics particularly noted the author’s incredible sense of word and rhythm, the enchanting magic of the narrator, subtle irony, and lyrical depiction of the surrounding reality. — This collection includes two famous...

Jonas Heidbrink, ein Erfolgsmensch. Schon vor dem dreißigsten hat er sein Start-up versilbert; arbeiten muss er sein Leben lang nicht mehr. Aber es geht Heidbrink nicht gut, überhaupt nicht. Und so fährt er eines kalten Januartages los Richtung Osten, in die mecklenburgische Einöde, wo inmitten von Sümpfen ein schlossartiger Bau emporragt: das Sanatorium.

Gerrit Kouwenaars Novelle erzählt die Geschichte des Jugendlichen Karel im Mai 1940 während des Überfalls der Deutschen auf die Niederlande. «Fall, Bombe, fall» ist ein wiederentdeckter Klassiker und zugleich eine erschreckend aktuelle Erzählung darüber, wie der Krieg jungen Menschen ihre Jugend stiehlt.

Die Fähre braucht vom Festland eine Stunde auf die kleine Nordseeinsel, manchmal länger, je nach Wellengang. Hier lebt in einem der zwei Dörfer seit fast 300 Jahren die Familie Sander. Drei Kinder hat Hanne großgezogen, ihr Mann hat die Familie und die Seefahrt aufgegeben. Nun hat ihr Ältester sein Kapitänspatent verloren, ist gequält von Ahnungen und Flutstatistiken und wartet auf den...