At first glance, the stories in The New Adventures of Helen seems simple, even child-like, but a deep reading reveals satire and darkness manifested through classic fairy tale tropes characteristically upended by Petrushevskaya. These 'adult fairy tales' ask deep questions about gender, love, history, memory, and the future, taking place in times between history and the now. These stories,...

The pope is dead. Behind the locked doors of the Sistine Chapel, one hundred and eighteen cardinals from all over the globe will gather to cast their votes in the world's most secretive election. They are holy men. But they are not immune to the human temptations of power and glory. And they are not above the tribalism and factionalism that consumes humanity. When all is said and done, one...

How long it had been since they last visited this house... Not since that very night when their youngest sister died. The circumstances of her death remained a mystery. That tragedy tore the family apart. And yet, twenty years later, the three sisters decided to spend Christmas together at a secluded cottage on the rocky coast of England. The eldest, Jess, has harbored a burning secret for...

An atmospheric drama about a heroine’s return to the heart of Karelia—a place where time flows more slowly than elsewhere, and the boundary between past, present, and future becomes blurred. – A poignant parable-novel exploring the clash between the old and the new, and the lives of those who stayed behind when everyone else left. – For admirers of contemporary social fiction set in the...

The book is rooted in the Orthodox legend of ‘Zoya’s Standing’ in Kuibyshev; in the author’s own words, it is a philosophical novel about modern man’s rejection of the miraculous. In the provincial backwater of Grechansk, the impossible occurs. A young woman named Tatiana gathers her friends for a dance party; finding herself without a partner, she invites... Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker...

A small child when he comes to England on a Kindertransport in the summer of 1939, Jacques Austerlitz is told nothing of his real family by the Welsh Methodist minister and his wife who raise him. When he is a much older man, fleeting memories return to him, and obeying an instinct he only dimly understands, Austerlitz follows their trail back to the world he left behind a half century before....

A dazzling debut novel about a young woman's vexed coming of age in a traditional Azerbaijani community in Russia, grappling under the weight of Muslim patriarchal norms and a debilitating neurological condition. The mysterious affliction leaves her unable to control her muscles, plagued by pain and speech disorders, defying diagnosis. Addressing each body part with the scrupulousness of a...

Siggi Jepsen, incarcerated as a juvenile delinquent, is one day assigned to write a routine German lesson on the ‘The Joys of Duty.’ Overfamiliar with these ‘joys,’ Siggi sets down his life since 1943, a decade earlier, when as a boy he watched his father, constable of the northernmost police station in Germany, doggedly carry out orders from Berlin to stop a well-known Expressionist, their...

'Wild Animal Tales' is a collection of fairy tales, where you can recognize each animal as a friend, neighbor, and sometimes yourself. In fantastic situations that develop around the characters of fairy tales, there is much more real, real life than it might seem at first glance. Wit, brilliant imagination, the ability to create stunning linguistic games - all these talents of Lyudmila...

Als Mira sich auf den Weg nach Südkärnten macht, steht ihr eine schwierige Aufgabe bevor: Sie muss ihre betagte Mutter auf den Auszug aus dem Haus vorbereiten, in dem sie vor Jahrzehnten mit den damals noch kleinen Kindern Obdach gefunden hat. Im Lauf der folgenden Wochen verdichten sich Miras eigene Erinnerungen an das Dorf und an eine als traumatisch erlebte Kindheit, geprägt von der rigiden...

Ein Mädcheninternat im Appenzell der sechziger Jahre. Gehorsam und Disziplin prägen die Ordnung des Hauses. Die heitere Landschaft vor den Fenstern treibt die vierzehnjährige Ich-Erzählerin zu stundenlangen einsamen Spaziergängen. Eines Tages erscheint eine Neue während des Mittagessens: Frédérique, schön, streng, verächtlich und voller Überdruss. Frédérique ist anders, etwas Leises und...