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The distancing of the Russian provinces from Moscow has thus far brought little change to the intellectual provincialism of the regions. Only the rocky Urals have turned out to provide fertile soil for a cultural blossoming. There are in particular three literary figures from the Urals who need fear no comparison with modern writers from other areas: Alexei Ivanov, 38, from Perm; Igor Sakhnovsky, 50, from Yekaterinburg, and Olga Slavnikova. These authors are noteworthy for the variety of genres in which they work – short stories, historical novels, intellectual thrillers, fantasy, social-issue novels – and for their stylistic mastery, richness of language and use of local colour. Even eroticism, which tends to be denigrated in literary circles today as almost an outdated, compulsively repetitious theme, makes an unexpected comeback in Sakhnovsky’s short story collection, “The Happy and the Mad” (2003). The intensity and refinement of treatment, the striking freshness and casualness of the erotic experience, prompt the reader to virtually swallow the book down at a gulp.
Reviewed by Vincent Francone
Kids these days. They think they’ve invented everything. The McOndo writers and Crack Generation, who so proudly buck the Magic Realist tendencies of García Márquez, who seek to find a place within Latin American letters sans spirits . . .. . .
Reviewed by Chad W. Post
When I was about two-thirds of the way through Neuman’s very ambitious, very engrossing novel, Bromance Will Evans asked me what I thought the purpose the rapist had in this book. Not who the rapist was—something that’s held in suspense. . .
Reviewed by Jennifer Marquart
“At night Amarâq is coated with a darkness as viscous as unmixed colors, neither the fjord nor the mountains, valleys, lakes, or the river exist, there is only a black mass, a void that spreads across the landscape sporadically, pressing. . .
Reviewed by John Thomas Mahany
If you’ve been following any of the recent Antoine Volodine talk going around Three Percent—both on the blog or on the podcasts—and have heard his fans wax obsessive over all his alter author-egos, you’re probably starting to feel some Volodine. . .
Reviewed by Aleksandra Fazlipour
Muireann Maguire’s Red Spectres is a stunning and engaging collection of eleven Russian gothic tales written by various authors during the early Soviet Era, all but two stories of which are featured in English for the first time ever. These. . .
Reviewed by Jeremy Osner
“The small stone plaza was floating in the midday heat. The Christ of Elqui, kneeling on the ground, his gaze thrown back on high, the part in his hair dark under the Atacaman sun—he felt himself falling into an ecstasy.. . .
Reviewed by Brendan Riley
This slender, uncanny volume—the second, best-selling collection of stories by Russian author Ludmilla Petrushevskaya to appear in the U.S.—has already received considerable, well-deserved praise from many critics and high profile publications. Its seventeen short tales, averaging ten pages each, are. . .
