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Articles
Title
Alexei Makushinsky presents his Steamship to Argentina at the Salon du livre de Paris
JUST PUBLISHED: Auntie Mina by Maya Kucherskaya in Macedonia
JUST PUBLISHED: Why Italians Love to Talk about Food by Elena Kostioukovitch reedited in Italy
Presentation of Elena Kostioukovitch´s Sette Notti in Milan, Italy
JUST PUBLISHED: Boris Nossik's Anna and Amedeo in Italy
JUST PUBLISHED: Ulitskaya's Girls in Finland
JUST PUBLISHED: Ulitskaya's Discarded Relics in Germany
Elena Kostioukovitch in Jerusalem
L’écrivaine russe Ludmila Oulitskaïa décorée de la Légion d’honneur
JUST PUBLISHED: Third edition of Why Italians Love to Talk about Food by Elena Kostioukovitch in Russia
JUST PUBLISHED: Ulitskaya's Medea and her Children in Romania
JUST PUBLISHED: Zwinger by Elena Kostioukovitch in Italy
AD: Irina Sherbakova in Vienna. Austria
AD: Maya Kucherskaya, Alexander Kabakov, and Alexei Makushinsky at the 2014 BuchWein Fair
JUST PUBLISHED: Non-Memoirs by Lotman in Spanish

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Featured titles

THE OLD GIRL, a novel by Vladimir Sharov

Rights sold: China - WUHAN UNIVERSITY PRESS, France - L’ESPRIT DES PENINSULES, Russia - AST, Serbia - UTOPIA

The novel depicts the tragic life of Vera Radostina, a communist party member who was married a high ranking commissar in Stalin’s government. Her life changes, however, after her husband is labelled an enemy of the people. She then loses everything – her husband is shot, her children pass away, and her house is taken from her. In this period of sorrow she decides to begin to relive her life by reading all of her old diary entries. Critically, the novel was well-received by reviewers who took an interest in the existential questions brought up by the novel, such as: is it possible to turn back time and is there an end to suffering?
Although the questions are well posed and explored in the novel, Sharov does not offer answers.
In Russia,

The Old Girl has sold a total of 15,000 copies in Russia.

Baize-Covered Table with Decanter, a novel by Vladimir Makanin (1993)

Rights sold: China - LITZIAN, France - GALLIMARD, AWorld English - Readers International,

Winner of the 1993 Russian Booker Award

Baize-Covered Table with Decanter describes one man's psychological torture as he faces an impending visit to be interrogated at the Table for a perceived, minor infraction. Makanin describes in some detail each character present at the Table, their purpose, techniques, and psychology. He also descibes in flashbacks the physical torture of suspects in Soviet days past and the mental torture of some as they are forcibly drugged in state mental hospitals. The book contains a few sections with an adult material not appropriate for minors; one scene in particular describes the sexual abuse of a corpse and is really quite disturbing.

Makanin does a good job describing the moral corruption of Russian/Soviet society. Neighbor is turned against neighbor. Bribes and sexual favors are freely exchanged. Fear rules. It seems no one is immune to this societal degradation.

Baize-Covered Table leaves the reader with the impression that, although the Soviet torture methods may have diminished in recent years, psychological torture that breaks a person's spirit, mind, and body may persist... there will always be a Table in Russia.

"...it is all of Solzhenitsyn compressed into 144 pages" -- Kevin Tole, GoodReads