ELKOST International literary agency - JUST PUBLISHED: Ludmila Ulitskaya's Funeral Party in Sweden

Ludmila Ulitskaya's Funeral Party released in Sweden by Ersatz as En munter begravning (tr. by Kristina Rotkirch).

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The Witness, a novel by Ilya Mitrofanov (1993)

Rights sold: Germany - Volk und Welt, Italy - Isbn Edizioni, Spain - Lumen, Poland - Claroscuro

"This novel is intensely passionate, and rich in fresh images and patterns..." (Silvia Bambino, The Wanity Fair)

"The Witness" is the first-person narrative of the life story of a simple human being, a barber Fedor Petrovich, whose life's most intense and dramatic period was the incorporation of his native Bessarabia into the Soviet Union in 1940, accompanied by coercion from the new command structure, which affected social relationships and caused enormous suffering due to famine brought on both by prolonged drought and by mistakes in official planning and preparation.

In the speck on the map called Kotlovina, the entire historical drama, starting with the so-called Soviet liberation from Romanian rule, was played out to its horrible end with very few survivors to live and tell about it.

The novel's success is based on the vivid and laconic presentation of its characters. "The Witness" projects the speech pattern of a simple, uneducated man. This style makes use of down-to-earth expressions, is unafraid of repetitions, takes notice of the simple things in life (of a person's outward appearance, of smells and fragrances, all very appropriate to a barber's profession), is not averse to rudeness in language and behavior, and above all is a stranger to all dissembling and pretense. The events told are viewed through the prism of recollection, which softens their horrible contours somewhat and which allows the theme of brotherhood to emerge and feelings of hatred to dissolve. Honesty and lack of pretense are the author's hallmark, and it is these features which characterize his artistic expression.

A School for Fools, a novel by Sasha Sokolov (1976)

Rights sold: Bulgaria - FAKEL, Brazil – ARS POETICA, Czech Republic - PROSTOR, Denmark - Munksgaard/Rosinante, Estonia – EESTI RAAMAT, France – SOLIN, Germany – SUHRKAMP, Greece – KOLLAROS, Hungary – NAPKUT, Israel - CARMEL, Italy – SALANI , Japan - Kawade Shobo Shinsha, Korea – MUNHAKDONGNE, Latvia – ZVAIGZNE, Lithuania - VAGA, Mongolia - MASH NUUTS MEDIA, The Netherlands – BEZIGE BIJ, VAN OORSCHOT, Poland – KONTRA, Portugal - CAVALO DE FERRO (PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE), Romania - ALLFA, Russia - AZBOOKA, OGI, Serbia – FILIP VIŠNJIC, Spain – CIRCULO DE LECTORES, MARBOT, Sweden – AWE/GEBERS, Switzerland – ZOÉ, Taiwan (Traditional Chinese language) - CHI MING, Turkey - TIMAŞ, USA – ARDIS, NYRB, World Arabic - NCT (Egypt)

A School for Fools is a journey through the mental landscape of a nameless, schizophrenic adolescent which he relates with the assistance of an author figure who may be the boy's older self. Through the kaleidoscopic prism of the teenager's schizoid mind, we share his bizarre perceptions and attempts to come to terms with the surrounding world.

Sokolov's A School for Fools has been called "a neglected masterpiece. Compared to Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago or Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Sokolov's brilliant novella shares with them the distinction of being one of the very few Russian novels to remain steadily in print. Pasternak's and Solzhenitsyn's novels are a continuation of the great nineteenth-century Russian literary tradition, Sokolov's marks the beginning of a new one.