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God of Rain, a novel by Maya Kucherskaya (2006)
Rights sold: Croatia - Zagrebacka naklada, Russia - AST
Student Booker Prize (2007)
God of Rain is a short novel, dynamically plotted and with none of the excesses we have come to associate with “youth” novels. Quite the opposite, it is the story of Anya, a nice, well-educated young woman, who graduates from college as promising young intellectual. She starts her philological studies in Moscow University, but falls into a deep depression, and converts to active Orthodoxy. Her conversion leaves her firmly determined to go to live in a monastery. But instead she falls in love with her spiritual father and ultimately emigrates to Canada. Throughout all of this, she remains a virgin and a profound spiritual seeker.
In this novel we have a fresh view on the involvement of the young people in the new Orthodox wave that seems to be overflowing in Russia these days; an important internal analysis of the dilemma of the believers and of the priest. In Anya—a nice, “clean thinking” young woman—we have a character long overdue in modern literature; and the plot is tightly woven and psychologically insightful.
The novel is meant to be read in one breath.
...Kucherskaya succeeded in being grateful. She writes about a happiness granted to her protagonist by an outcast, confused, bitter, but so genuine adolescence. (Andrew Nemzer)
Should we say the new novel by Kucherskaya is good? Of course, it is… (Evgeny Berzharsky, Itogi)
Maya Kucherskaya once again demonstrates her expertise in a literary rope walking … (Vladimir Zamirsky, Komsomolskaya Pravda)
I've always thought that a good humanities training is useful for an aspiring writer, and Kucherskaya's novel proves it: Her style is lucid and often gripping. Moreover, the subject matter is quite fresh. (Victor Sonkin, The Moscow Times)
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The Three Fat Men, a novel by Yuri Olesha
Rights sold / Published by (rights may be available): Bulgaria - Hermes, China - Youth and Children Publishing Company, Czech Republic - Svět Sovětů, France - Éditions Hier et Aujourd'hui, Greece - Kedros, Hungary - Magvető, Móra, Italy - Einaudi, Japan - Kodansha, Poland - Książka i Wiedza, Romania - Editura Ion Creangă, English - Hesperus Press
The novel was written for both children and adults. It is a story set in an unknown land about an uprising led by the gunsmith Prospero. (The name is an allusion to the magician in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest.) The novel has the didactic and schematic qualities of a fairy tale and is filled with unexpected metaphors and dexterously shifting points of view. In The Three Fat Men Olesha displays the same mastery of style present in Envy and his short stories.
Olesha's The Three Fat Men is of one of the finest, most overlooked works of Soviet-era literature. At once a peculiarly hilarious satire full of magic and whimsy, it is also a beautifully written work of literature, brimming with profound metaphors and brilliant turns of phrase. This is a "fairy tale" ostensibly written for children, but which will be even more appreciated by grown-ups. - Russian Life magazine
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