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Zwinger, a novel by Elena Kostioukovitch (2013)
Rights sold: Armenia - ORACLE, Italy - BOMPIANI (RCS LIBRI), Russia - CORPUS BOOKS (AST), Serbia - RUSSICA, Ukraine - FOLIO
Elena Kostioukovitch´s Zwinger blends together the genres of historical novel and thriller, with a lively and ironic style. In the frame of a fictional detective story, the book investigates deeply into the real mysteries of the Twentieth century history through precious documents and direct testimonies of the author.
«Just before Victor Zieman was faxed the severed head of his assistant Mireille, he was sitting in the Iroha restaurant in Frankfurt with Behr, eating tempura. It was Wednesday. All this mayhem had started on the Saturday before the Book Fair, in Victor’s Milan apartment where everything looked exactly the same as it always did.»
Seven wild days in the life of Zwinger's main character, Victor Sieman, twist together into a tight knot of quest and adventure, where the final, true goal...
Read moreA Gloom Descends Upon the Ancient Steps, a novel by Alexander Chudakov (2000)
Rights sold: France - Christian Bourgois (2003), Macedonia - ANTOLOG, Poland - von Borowiecky, Spain - AUTOMATICA, Russia – Olma Press (2001), Vremya (2011)
2001 RUSSIAN BOOKER Award nominee
2011 RUSSIAN BOOKER OF THE DECADE Awared winner
Set in Chebachinsk, a fictitious town in Northern Kazakhstan inhabited by political exiles, its panoramic narrative focuses on the relationship between Anton, a Moscow historian of the vital “1960s generation,” and his grandfather, a titan of physical and intellectual rigor from a hardy line of Vilnius clerics. The lucid and forthright prose style was described by critics as “clear, rich, glowing with good-natured humor, and free”. The novel’s overall effect is uplifting despite its unflinching presentation of the human toll of Stalinism. Chudakov told Radio Russia that his concern was to show that despite “all that,” Russia in this period actually continued to live a variegated and even positive...
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