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Featured titles
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Not Russian, a novel by Mikhail Shevelev
German rights are handled by Christina Links:
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Rights sold: Czech Republic - PROSTOR, France – GALLIMARD, Italy - E/O, Russia – ZAKHAROV, World English rights - EUROPA EDITIONS
One always pays over and above for his cowardice, treachery, or indifference, and the bill always comes at wrong time, and in most unexpected form. And you always pay yourself, no group discounts applied.
Protagonist of this psychological thriller finds himself being responsible for lives and safety of dozens of others. To save them, he should understand was he has done wrong in the past.
Dynamic, concentrated narrative of Mikhail Shevelev’s NOT RUSSIAN is written in the genre of retrospective journalist investigation, where real facts of recent Russian history are masterfully merged with fiction.
Pavel, the main hero and narrator of Shevelev’s novel, a reporter by profession, in early 1990ies has delivered Vadim, a young soldier, back to Russia from Chechen captivity. But things did not come around for Vadim as they both expected, and fifteen years later he unwillingly became a terrorist, taking hostage a congregation of the church outside Moscow. Pavel is called upon to serve as negotiator. To right the ship, Pavel should convince Russian president publicly recognize his political mistakes, and apologize for triggering wars in Chechnya and Ukraine.
I wrote this novel, Shevelev says, after I suddenly realized that journalism is no more an effective tool for changing social realm. I believe that in Russia today literature can do more than journalism.
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Blue and Red, a novel by Vladimir Makanin (1983)
Rights sold: Italy - Edizioni e/o,
Makanin’s view of man’s nature is a pessimistic one, and his depictions of love and harmonious interrelationships lack the power of his descriptions of man’s inhumanity to man (or to beast). He is most at ease describing love linked to violence, as in Blue and Red (Goluhoe i krasnoe) (1983), which describes how two grandmothers battle for the love of their young grandson Kliucharev, who is ‘unused to love’ — a phrase which perhaps could be used to describe many of Makanin’s heroes.The love which Makanin’s heroes advocate is a tough, universal and unselfish love, as typified by the healer Yakushkin with his philosophy of brotherly love in Makanin's previous novel Predlecha (1982). It is love for one’s family and kin, love for one’s people, birthplace, for Russia, love which has a basis in conscience, which interests Makanin, which means that his characters, are seekers after truth, not the comfort of relationships dominated by nostalgia or by habit.
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