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Hardly Ever Otherwise
￥90.03
Painting a tortured picture of life’s harsh brutality in the region, Maria provides an insight into the complicated history of this remote corner of the Carpathian Mountains. Against the colourful backdrop of local traditions and highlanders’ rites she weaves her story of love, intertwined with a heart wrenching human tragedy, not avoiding intimate details of the anatomy of relationships between men and women. Enchanted by the impeccable style of this family saga, the reader becomes baffled by the character’s actions. In the words of Maria Matios the book is about people’s deeply concealed nature. When familiar passions like love and hate, joy and envy overcome them and it’s not in their nature to resist, consequences reach the catastrophic magnitude. Each character is flawed, detestable, but in the book’s finale they incite compassion as their painful past is steadily revealed. The eternal dilemma of sin and atonement pervades the pages of this book. The author does not shy away from carnal encounters and masterfully describes the psychology of lovers, accentuating people’s struggles on different levels.
The Vital Needs Of The Dead: Chronicles
￥90.03
The Vital Needs of the Dead is a tender coming-of-age story set in the provinces of the Soviet Union during the second half of the 20th century. At the center of this story, praised by Russian critics for its blend of realism and lyrical sensibility, lies the relationship of young Gosha Sidelnikov with his alluring and mysterious grandmother Rosa, who becomes his caregiver when he is virtually abandoned by his busy and distant parents. This relationship colors Sidelnikov’s subsequent forays into first love and sexual awakening. Even after her death, memories of Rosa accompany him into his adventures and misadventures as a provincial student. Then, one miserably cold winter night, her voice commands him to immediately depart for a place he’s never been before, precipitating a mysterious chain of events.
Boris Yeltsin:The Decade that Shook the World
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The literature on Boris Yeltsin is vast. Memoirs have been produced not only by politicians – first-hand participants in the events, Yeltsin himself penned three volumes of recollections – but also assistants, press secretaries, political analysts, journalists, MPs, retired members of Gorbachev’s Politburo, public figures now long forgotten, generals of special services and security service staff. Boris Minaev started working on Boris Yeltsin’s biography when the politician was still alive. In his work the author has used not only publicly accessible documents that have been printed or otherwise made accessible but also interviews that are published for the first time. In this unique biography of the first President of the Russian Federation author consistently describes events of Yeltsin's life, capturing and conveying his unique personality with all the contradictions of his character and principles that determined public attitude towards Yeltsin. Some saw him as an outstanding builder of the new Russia, others - as a destroyer of the great state. But whoever he was de facto, the decade of his rule shook the world. *** Boris Minayev is a Russian writer and correspondent. Minayev has worked for many Russian venues and is currently serving as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Medved. Boris Minayev is known for his children’s books and novels for mature readers. One of the most famous works of his that is being widely quoted in the media is his biography of Russia’s first president Boris Yeltsin, first published in the series ‘Lives of Extraordinary People’.
Herstories. An Anthology of New Ukrainian Women Prose Writers
￥90.03
Women’s prose writing has exploded on the literary scene in Ukraine just prior to and following Ukrainian independence in 1991. Over the past two decades scores of fascinating new women authors have emerged. These authors write in a wide variety of styles and genres including short stories, novels, essays, and new journalism. In the collection you will find: realism, magical realism, surrealism, the fantastic, deeply intellectual writing, newly discovered feminist perspectives, philosophical prose, psychological mysteries, confessional prose, and much more.
A Poet and Bin-Laden: A Reality Novel
￥90.03
The “reality novel” A Poet and Bin-Laden set in Central Asia at the turn of the 21st century against a swirling backdrop of Islamic fundamentalism in the Ferghana Valley and beyond, gives a first-hand account on the militants and Taliban’s internal life. The novel begins on the eve of 9/11, with the narrator’s haunting description of the airplane attack on the Twin Towers as seen on TV while he is on holiday in Central Asia; and tells the story of an Uzbek poet Belgi, who was disappointed in the authoritarian regime in Uzbekistan and became a terrorist in the eyes of the world. His journey begins with a search for a Sufi spiritual master and ends in guerrilla warfare, and it is this tension between a transcendental and a violent response to oppression, between the book and the bomb, between Archipelago GULAG and modern Central Asia and Afghanistan, that gives the novel its specific poignancy. In this book Hamid Ismailov masterfully intertwines fiction with documentary and provides wonderfully vivid accounts of historical events such as the siege of Kunduz, the breakout from Shebergan prison and the insurgency in the Ferghana Valley as witnessed by the Byronian figure of Belgi, who enters the inner sanctum of al-Qaeda, and ultimately meets Sheikh bin Laden himself.
The Sarabande of Sara’s Band
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Sarabande is a novel presented mostly through the rapid-fire interactions of the characters in one-on-one situations or in small groups. Most of the novel revolves around the male protagonist, the journalist Pavlo Dudnyk, who takes his schoolhood friend Sara Polonsky as his second wife. Sara, who blossomed from an inconspicuous overweight adolescent into a vivacious woman, used to mock him in school with the nickname “Underbutt” for his bony derriere that always needed padding on the classroom chairs. When Pavlo marries Sara, he doesn’t realize at first that he’s also married into her extended family, Sara’s band of Polonskys, with their myriad quirks and manifestations of peculiar behavior.
Depeche Mode
￥90.03
In 1993, tragic turbulence takes over Ukraine in the post-communist spin-off. As if in somnambulism, Soviet war veterans and upstart businessmen listen to an American preacher of whose type there were plenty at the time in the post-Soviet territory. In Kharkiv, the young communist headquarters is now an advertising agency, and a youth radio station brings Western music, with Depeche Mode in the lead, into homes of ordinary people. In the middle of this craze three friends, an anti-Semitic Jew Dogg Pavlov, an unfortunate entrepreneur Vasia the Communist and the narrator Zhadan, nineteen years of age and unemployed, seek to find their old pal Sasha Carburetor to tell him that his step-father shot himself dead. Characters confront elements of their reality, and, tainted with traumatic survival fever, embark on a sad, dramatic and a bit grotesque adventure.
The Grand Harmony
￥90.03
The extraordinarily inventive Ukrainian poet and literary critic Bohdan Ihor Antonych (1909-1937), the son of a Catholic priest, died prematurely at the early age of 28 of pneumonia. Originally from the mountainous Lemko region in Poland, where a variant of Ukrainian is spoken, he was home-schooled for the first eleven years of his life because of frequent illness. He began to write poetry in Ukrainian after he moved to the Western Ukrainian city of Lviv to continue his studies at the University of Lviv. He published just three collections of poetry in his lifetime: A Greeting to Life (1931), Three Rings (1934), and The Book of the Lion (1936), with the latter two firmly establishing his reputation as one of the best poets of his time in Ukraine. Three additional collections, The Green Gospel (1938), Rotations (1938), and The Grand Harmony (1967), were published posthumously. A collection of poems on religious themes written in 1932 and 1933, The Grand Harmonyis a subtle and supple examination of Antonych’s intimately personal journey to faith, with all its revelatory verities as well as self-questioning and doubt. The collection marks the beginning of Antonych’s development into one of the greatest poets of his time. During Soviet times it was banned for its religious content. It was first published in its entirety in 1967 in New York. The Grand Harmony first appeared in English translation in a bilingual edition with Litopys Publishers in 2007, which has long been sold out. The poems “Musica Noctis,” “De Morte I,” “Ars Poetica 1” and “Liber Peregrinorum 3” were reprinted in The Essential Poetry of Bohdan Ihor Antonych: Ecstasies and Elegies (Bucknell University Press, 2010). One can find additional poetic renderings of Antonych’s selected poetry in the translations of various well-known American poets under the title A Square of Angels (Ann Arbor: Ardis Publishers, 1977), which was edited by Bohdan Boychuk.
The Frontier: 28 Contemporary Ukrainian Poets: An Anthology (A Bilingual Edition
￥90.03
This anthology reflects a search of the Ukrainian nation for its identity, the roots of which lie deep inside Ukrainian-language poetry. Some of the included poets are well-known locally and internationally; among them are Serhiy Zhadan, Halyna Kruk, Ostap Slyvynsky, Marianna Kijanowska, Oleh Kotsarev, Anna Bagriana and, of course, the living legend of Ukrainian poetry, Vasyl Holoborodko. The next Ukrainian poetic generation also features prominently in the collection. Such poets as Les Beley, Olena Herasymyuk, Myroslav Laiuk, Hanna Malihon, Taras Malkovych, Julia Musakovska, Julia Stakhivska and Lyuba Yakimchuk are the ones Ukrainians like to read today, and each of them already has an excellent reputation abroad due to festival appearances and translations to European languages. The work collected here documents poetry in Ukraine responding to challenges of the time by forging a radical new poetic, reconsidering writing techniques and language itself. Edited and translated from the Ukrainian by Anatoly Kudryavitsky.
A History of Belarus: A Non-Literary Essay that Explains the Ethnogenesis of the
￥90.03
Rare materials on Belarus are a potential treasure trove for the English language reader. A blank spot on the map for many, Belarus is an undiscovered mystery in the heart of Europe – undiscovered, because little has been published on the country’s history and current affairs, and the origin of the ethnic group that calls itself ‘Belarusians’. Author Lubov Bazan attempts to uplift the veil of secrecy surrounding Belarus and answer an important question of the ethnogenesis of the Belarusians. Unique in its ongoing struggle for independence, throughout its history Belarus has been deprived of this luxury by being continuously included in various state formations such as Kievan Rus’, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Kingdom of Poland, the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union. A History of Belarus is a thorough chronological narrative that covers major milestones of Belarus’s journey into the 21st century. Lubov Bazan gives her readers plenty of leeway to form their own conclusions about the historical material presented. By incorporating different theoretical viewpoints on fundamental issues such as the ethnic background of the Belarusian people and formation of their national identity, the origins of the language, and the historically complex religious composition of the country, Bazan offers a platform for discussion.
Zo Gaat Dat In Rusland: Of Hoe Te Leven Tussen Russen
￥90.03
Maria Konjoekova’s Zo gaat dat in Rusland, of hoe te leven tussen Russen is niet alleen een grappige, vol zelfspot geschreven handleiding voor het dagelijks leven in Rusland, het is ook een scherpzinnige en praktische gids voor het doorgronden van een land en van mensen die we vandaag de dag overal ter wereld kunnen tegenkomen. Waar komen onze meningen en vooroordelen eigenlijk vandaan? De schrijfster onderzoekt de culturele eigenaardigheden, waarvan het Russische leven doortrokken is, en geeft ook een verklaring voor de stortvloed aan ongebreidelde Russische emoties in alle mogelijke situaties. Zo rekent ze moeiteloos af met de vele misvattingen die er over de Russen bestaan en kweekt op humoristische wijze begrip voor hun, in Westerse ogen, soms onbegrijpelijke gedrag. Konjoekova wil met haar boek preken noch bekeren, ze beoogt daarentegen een brutaal, maar liefdevol inkijkje te geven in de Russische ziel. Eigenlijk is haar boek een minihandleiding voor de mens in het algemeen.
A Russian Story
￥90.03
He is young, intelligent, well educated, with patriotic sentiments. But certain misunderstandings oblige him to flee from Ukraine. For some reason, everything in his life builds up to a certain Russian scenario. So to what extent should one burden Ukrainians with the outcome of this Russian Story? Finding himself involuntarily identified with Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, the hero of the novel, Eugene Samarsky, becomes a 'superfluous man' in Ukraine. The novel by Eugenia Kononenko deals with love and the quest for one’s own identity, with the vaguely remembered circumstances rendering life nonsensical in Ukraine during the last years of the empire and the early years of independence. It considers the possibility of a mid-Atlantic meeting in today's globalised world.
The Investigator
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The Investigator is set in Soviet Ukraine in the early 1950s. With Stalin at the helm, the post-war Soviet Union is struggling to rebuild and to heal the nation of its multiple wounds. Plots and conspiracies abound and challenges to socialist values, real and imagined, proliferate. A young woman is murdered in a typical Soviet town. In the spirit of the era everyone is a suspect. The investigator of the title sets out to solve the crime. A former intelligence officer who seeks to embody the ideals of the young Soviet Union, he introduces the reader to a polyphony of alternative voices that, together with his own, weave the unique fabric of this striking novel.
Groot Slem en Andere Verhalen
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Andrejevs actieve periode als schrijver besloeg zo'n twintig jaar in een tumultueuze periode van de geschiedenis van Rusland. Hij ondersteunde de eerste Russische Revolutie daadwerkelijk en kwam voor het verbergen van medeplichtigen en het organiseren van geheime bijeenkomsten in de gevangenis terecht. Toen in 1907 de reactie op de revolutie kwam, nam de schrijver afstand van alle revolutionaire opvattingen, omdat volgens hem de opstand van de massa slechts lijden en slachtoffers zou brengen. De vertwijfeling en de onzekerheid die de oorlog en de revolutie met zich meebrachten be?nvloedden in zijn werk. Thema’s als de tragiek van eenzaamheid, angst voor de dood, existenti?le vertwijfeling en vormen van waanzin en hysterie, die zich veelal in een ziekenhuis of op het sterfbed afspeelden, zijn niet weg te denken uit Andrejevs boeken. In veel van zijn verhalen lopen waan en werkelijkheid door elkaar, waardoor een persoonlijk drama wereldomvattende proporties kan aannemen. Hoewel Andrejev zich aan zeer gevoelige onderwerpen waagde als verkrachting en geslachtsziekte, en daardoor de geschiedenis is ingegaan als een sensationeel en overwegend pessimistisch schrijver, worden veel van zijn betere verhalen gekenmerkt door een humoristische inslag. Deze uitgave bevat een aantal verhalen van Leonid Andrejev die in hun compleetheid en originaliteit de thema’s en stijl van deze grote Russische meester uitstekend weergeven.
A Book Without Photographs
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Sergei Shargunov’s A Book Without Photographs follows the young journalist and activist through selected snapshots from different periods of his remarkable life. Through memories both sharp and vague, we see scenes from Shargunov’s Soviet childhood, his upbringing in the family of a priest; his experience of growing up during the fall of empire and studying journalism at Moscow State University; his trip to war-torn Chechnya and Kyrgyzstan during the revolution; his first steps towards a fledgling political career. The book reflects the vast social and cultural transformations that colour Russia's recent history and mirrors the experience of an entire generation of Russians whose lives and feelings are inextricably intertwined with the fate of their homeland. Shortlisted for the National Bestseller Prize and a contender for The Big Book Award, A Book Without Photographs showcases the talents of one of the country’s brightest lights; a key player in a generation at the forefront of change in contemporary Russia.
Tsunami
￥90.03
Anatoly Kurchatkin’s novel, set in Russia and Thailand, ranges in time from the Brezhnev years of political stagnation, when Soviet values seemed set to endure for eternity, through Gorbachev’s Perestroika and the following tumultuous and disorientating decades. Under the surface, ancient currents are influencing the destinies of mathematician Rad, art gallery owner Jenny, entrepreneur (and spy?) Dron, American investor Chris, redundant Soviet diplomat Yelena and Thai playboy Tony in a rapidly globalizing world of laptop computers, mobile phones, credit cards and international finance. The fourteenth-century battle in which the Prince of Muscovy, inspired by St Sergius of Radonezh, defeated the Golden Horde of the Mongol Empire foreshadows a modern struggle for the soul of Russia. Tsunami was shortlisted for the Russian Booker Prize and the Russo-Italian Moscow-Penne Prize. Translated by Arch Tait.
Goodbye, Bird
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For a twenty-eight-year-old young man who returned from the army several years ago but has yet to reacclimatize to ordinary life, every step, gesture, word, and vision is a revelation, which takes him back to the beginning, to a time when reality had lost its shape, and turned into a new and imperceptible world. In his imagination, he embodies a number of different characters, he feels the presence of his girlfriend again, and remembers friends from his childhood and from the army, who are now gone. This is a book of questions, and the answers to these questions are to be found by the reader. The novel is like a puzzle which needs to be pieced together, and the picture is not complete until the last piece is in place, until the last word of the book has been read. Translated from the Armenian by Nairi Hakhverdi.
The Shining Light
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Poetry has always been in the Kazakh blood, and Galym Mutanov is one of the newly independent nation’s leading poets, a shining light in the Kazakh literary world. In the range of his poetry, Mutanov truly captures the essence of the Kazakh spirit – from the tough and ageless traditions of the wild steppe to moments of tender intimacy. The measured Islamic wisdom and deep sense of morality so intrinsic to Kazakh life of old shines through in verse after verse. The figure of Abai, the 19th century visionary, the deeply spiritual poet of the steppe, looms large over Kazakh poetry. Mutanov takes up the challenge that Abai threw down – to create verse that is both steeped in the Kazakh tradition of oral verse yet rises to a new clarity and spirituality relevant today. Mutanov wrote originally in Kazakh, but many Kazakhs speak only Russian. So his poems were translated into Russian by leading poets Vladimir Buryazev and M. Adibaeva. It is these Russian versions that provided the source for John Farndon’s translations with Olga Nakston for this collection. Galym Mutanov is not only a poet but something of a polymath. He is a hugely distinguished academic, with over 400 scientific papers to his credit, and currently rector of al-Farabi Kazakh National University in Alma-Ata. In 2013, his achievements were recognized in France by the award of a Chevalier L'Ordre des Palmes académiques.
Conversations before Silence: The selected poetry of Oles Ilchenko
￥90.03
An avid reader of English-language poets such as William Carlos Williams and Stanley Kunitz, Ilchenko is one of the best Ukrainian poets writing in free verse today. His poetry is associative, flitting, and fragmentary. At times he does not form complete sentences in his poems and links words together into phrases before shifting into another thought or idea. The language of his poetry has a tendency to collapse into itself, often forcing the reader to reevaluate a word or line, to reread a previous word to focus on the poet’s inner logic. This fragmentary incompleteness and permeability mimics much the way human consciousness works without the filter of the written communicative convention of sentences and grammatical structure. This “slipperiness” and rapid shifting of voice comprises one of the essential invariants in Ilchenko’s poetics. The poet also flaunts many traditional poetic Ukrainian conventions. Like ee cummings he tends to avoid capital letters or punctuation such as exclamation points. One will find only commas and dashes for pauses, and an occasional period in his poems, which do not always end with the finality of that punctuation mark. In doing this, the poet often suggests a fragment or slice of his life broken off on the page and to be continued at some point in time. He is a fascinating poet whose idiom and unique manner of expression translates seamlessly into the poetics of contemporary English.
Contours of the City
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Contours of the City arguably comprises one of the finest collections of free verse ever written in Ukrainian even though it was largely overlooked when it first appeared during the political transition to Ukrainian independence in 1991. It certainly deserves a broader audience both in Mohylny’s homeland as well as in the wider world. While it may be described as a one-hit wonder because of the poet’s premature death, it remains a brilliant hit for all time. Translator Michael Naydan received the Eugene Kayden Meritorious Achievement Award in Translation from the University of Colorado for a partial manuscript of his translations of Mohylny’s poetry into English in 1993. This edition includes a complete translation of Mohylny’s collection Contours of the City along with several poems translated by Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phipps.
Down Among the Fishes
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Down Among the Fishes revolves around the story of a woman named Alka, native of a small Belarusian village near the Polish border. Alka’s unfulfilled desire to have a child turns her into an alcoholic and a drug addict. Then, a family tragedy turns her world upside down, forcing her out of the self-destructive cycle. Together with her twin sister, she sets out to examine the chain of events that led to her grandmother’s unexpected death. Their inquiry quickly changes into a murder investigation. As the twins uncover new facts of the crime, more questions need to be answered. But will they? A rural intrigue continues to hold the villagers firm in its grasp until the very resolution.
