Featured titles
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Biography of Mikhail Bulgakov, by Marietta Chudakova (1988, NF)
Rights sold: China - CCTP, Italy - ODOYA, Poland - Wydawnictwo Akademickie SEDNO, Ukraine - FOLIO, World English - GLAGOSLAV
MariettaChudakova’s Biography of Mikhail Bulgakov (first published in 1988), by now is THE ONLY FULL-LENGTH STUDY OF BULGAKOV’S LIFE. It remains the most important and reliable source of information about the writer. In her fundamental work Chudakova recreates the milestones of Bulgakov’s personal and artistic life against the historical background of his turbulent époque. The book is written in a vivid journalistic style, and contains abundant quotes from unpublished Bulgakov’s manuscripts and draft redactions of his novels, archive documents, and memoirs of writer’s contemporaries.
"They must know... They must know," anxious about the fate of his unpublished books, Bulgakov whispered to his wife Yelena on his deathbed. One of the main ideas of his central novel The Master and Margarita is that of justice, which inevitably triumphs in the life of the spirit, although sometimes belatedly and beyond the bourn of the creator's physical death.
Over the years that have passed since the day of Bulgakov's death, his former loneliness has turned into widespread interest in him from readers both in his native Russia and abroad. The growing popularity of his books, which are very "personal" and seem to talk to the reader directly, has attracted attention to the author himself, his biography, and his fate. The fame of Mikhail Bulgakov has taken root in time everlasting. He is dear to people as a writer and interesting as a man who retained throughout the vicissitudes of fate, the dignity and courage of a truly creative personality.
Writers with a great destiny know something about themselves that we do not know or dare not say about them until later. At this juncture interest arises in the figure of the creator himself, in his biography, his personality. Why do we know so little about him? Why does he grow more interesting each year? Bulgakov's destiny has its own dramatic pattern. As is always the case from a distance and after the passage of many years, it appears to contain little that is accidental and shows a clear sense of direction.
Chudakova's 2-part lecture on Bulgakov and Russian literature of XXth century broadcasted on Kultura TV channel, Russia, 2011
Part 2
Part 2
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RACHEL, a novel by Andrei Gelasimov
Rights sold: France - ACTES SUD, Russia - EKSMO, Spain - CLUB EDITOR (Catalan language), World English - AMAZON CROSSING,
With icons like Chubby Checker and Yuri Gagarin, the Moscow that Svyatoslav Semyonovich inhabits at the onset of the Cold War brims with the flashy visual textures of capitalism. A Jewish teenager on the hunt for black-market tight pants and rock records, Svyatoslav somehow fails to develop his undying love for Lyuba into a happy ending. He finds work in a mental institution, runs off to Kiev with one of the patients, marries a few times, has a son, becomes a professor, and halfheartedly runs interference for the KGB. Always taking great pleasure in the experiences of others, including his patients and lovers, Svyatoslav flounders through his own life but never loses sight of Lyuba, his biblical Rachel, his great love. A professor and close reader of both Russian and American literature, Svyatoslav tries to interpret his eccentric life as if it were a text to be read, only to learn that life happens off the page.
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