Featured titles
-
Aquarius over Odessa, a novel by Ilya Mitrofanov (1992)
Rights sold: Germany - Volk und Welt, Spain - Lumen
"Unfortunately, AQUARIUS OVER ODESSA will remain the author's final work; the tragic accident that took his life in 1994 has deprived Russian literature of one of its more promising talents." -- Joseph P. Mozur Jr., World Literature Today
The astrological sign of change, Aquarius, bodes neither peace nor goodwill for Mitrofanov's blue-collar hero Semyon Stavraki, a deep-sea diver working in the rough and bustling port of Odessa. Stavraki, an orphan raised in the ruins of postwar Odessa, claims the city as his mother and proudly credits her with having taught him honesty, respect, and tolerance for others. Nevertheless, Stavraki's story illustrates how bad things can befall good people, and his fortunes take a disastrous turn precisely when the star sign appears over the city.
The first-person narrative opens with Stavraki's homecoming from a prison camp in the north of Russia. He tells his life story to a fellow passenger on die train home, a situation reminiscent of that in Tolstoy's Kreutzer Sonata. As the train draws nearer to the hero's beloved Odessa, the tale picks up intensity, and the idyllic portrayal of Stavraki's love and marriage to a waitress suddenly gives way to a tragic chain of events culminating in his trial and prison sentence for murder.
Stavraki's tale is in many ways an extended metaphor -- life is a plunge into the depths. As the novel progresses, Mitrofanov's hero becomes more and more convincing and real, as do the circumstances in which he lives in the post-Soviet era.
Read more... -
ADDENDUM TO OLD PHOTO ALBUM, a novel by Vladislav Otroshenko (2007)
Rights sold: Italy – Voland, Fanucci (magazine rights), France - Verdie, Macedonia - Makedonika Litera, World English - Dalkey Archive Press
A magical realism masterpiece, this family saga is populated by surrealist characters, and narrated with a spicy and clownish language. A mysterious race of a greedy tribe leaded by a bizarre patriarch with a heroic past, all inhabiting the unexplored depths of a house as big as the world. Otroshenko's quirky and cute characters move, peck, amuse one another as if they were puppets of papier mâché, engaged in phantasmagoric adventures, enchanting and exhilarating. Otroshenko makes the entire history of mankind and of Russia to repeat itself endlessly, in concentric circles out of time and space.
Read more...