Featured titles
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The Second Day, a novel by Ilya Ehrenburg (1932)
Publishers: Germany - VOLK UND WELT (1958), Portugal – BLOCH (1974), USA/UK - HIPPOCRENE BOOKS (1972), OCTAGON BOOKS (1978)
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The Second Day (Den Vtoroi, sometimes translated as "Out of Chaos") is a day-to-day account of the harsh conditions of life and heroic efforts of workers to overcome nature's resistance as they built a blast furnace in Kuznetsk, Russia. In the novel, a weak dreamer tries to fit in with the more dedicated workers but fails. He becomes complicit in an act of vandalism. Ashamed of his own spiritual bankruptcy, he commits suicide. -
INTO THE THICKENING FOG, a novel by Andrei Gelasimov
Rights sold: France - ACTES SUD, Russia - EKSMO, World English - AMAZON CROSSING,
Sometimes a novel describes reality so well it creates a physical sensation. Into the Thickening Fog could make even readers in the tropics pull up a blanket.
A famous director returns to his hometown, a tiny city in Russia’s Far North, where he foolishly shows up without even a scarf. But Filippov can’t head straight to his friend’s apartment to share the bad news he’s traveled so far to deliver. The city’s centralized heating system has broken down, chaos ensues, and Filippov finds himself walking through the frigid weather. He struggles to see and even to stand up straight as he stumbles forward, detoured at every turn by obstacles both real and imagined. Luckily, he has a flask of Hennessy and a sense of humor.
At once hilarious and stark, this novel is a great entry point for reading one of Russia’s most celebrated contemporary novelists. Thanks to Andrei Gelasimov’s gift for cinematic scene-setting, you might feel like you’ve just returned from Siberia and are shaking a case of delirium tremens when you finish reading.
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