The latest addition to my website is Emilio Fraia‘s Sevastopol (Sevastopol). This consists of three linked stories inspired by Tolstoy’s Sevastopol Sketches, though only one is actually set (in part) in Sevastopol. All three, however, are about people struggling with relationships and struggling to find meaning in their life. The first is about a Brazilian … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Maria Stepanova‘s Памяти памяти (In Memory of Memory). This is a superb documentary novel, narrated by the author but written, in some respects, like a novel. She deals with the many aspects of memory, the past and history as well as delving into her own past and the … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Corrado Alvaro‘s L’uomo è forte (Man Is Strong; later: Fear in the World). This novel, first published in 1938, tells of an unnamed country which is clearly, to a great extent, the Soviet Union, though neither the country nor any of the cities are named. Both Barbara and … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Sergei Lebedev‘s Дебютант (Untraceable). This is a story inspired by but not based on the Salisbury poisonings when Russian agents used the nerve agent Novichok to try and kill a former Russian double agent and his daughter. This novel tells of a scientist who develops a similar agent, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Dmitri Lipskerov‘s О нём и о бабочках (The Tool and the Butterflies). This is a complex story, focusing on one Arseny Iratov who, at the beginning of the novel, is rich (money made from Soviet-era illegal currency speculation, and later dealing in precious stones and an architectural business … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Alexander Grigorenko‘s Мэбэт (Mebet). This book is set among Siberian tribes with no contact with or even mention of Russia and Russians. Mebet is known as God’s Favourite. Orphaned at a young age, he has has always lived alone. He is very strong and courageous. He ignores all … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Zakhar Prilepin‘s Обитель (The Monastery). This novel tells the story of Artiom Gorianov who is a prisoner in the 1920s in the remote Solovki prison camp. Initially we do not know why he is there but we later learn that he is not a political prisoner but has … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Bernard Prou‘s Alexis Vassilkov ou la vie tumultueuse du fils de Maupassant [Alexis Vassilkov or the Tumultuous Life of the Son of Maupassant]. This is a complicated story involving the (fictitious) son of French writer Guy de Maupassant and his mother, a Russian woman who models for Renoir … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Boris Poplavsky‘s Аполлон Безобразов (Apollon Bezobrazov). The book was written in the 1930s but only a few chapters were published in an émigré magazine, till 1992, when it was serialised in a Russian magazine and finally published in book form in 1993. It was intended to be part … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Bernard Chambaz‘s Vladimir Vladimirovitch. This is a novel about Vladimir Vladimirovitch Putin, both of them. The narrator, called Vladimir Vladimirovitch Putin, is a former university professor, now a tram driver, a few months older than the Russian president, and similar in appearance. He has a dull life but … Read more