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Eternal Life of Liza K., a novel by Marina Vishneventskaya
Rights sold: Russia - AST
Winner of the 2017 Znamya literary magazine prize
The title of Vishneventskaya's novel indeed resembles that of the "scandalous" biography of Angela Merkel The First Life of Angela M., but in fact its ideological and informative parameters are much closer to French political novels of the mid-19th century, with political views of the author intertwined within the story itself.
The plot of the novel is set in Moscow and Berlin in 2012 to 2015. The protagonist, Liza Karmannikova, after a series of events in her private life, comes to the realization of her involvement into a socio-political life of her country, and this awareness becomes the important attribute of her world view. But, unlike the old French novels, there is no conflict, especially insoluble, in “Eternal Life ...”, but there is an expressive story about the “unpretentious” young woman narrated in a figurative, rhythmic language.
Liza K. is a single mother, she is 28 years old, and works for a travel agency where she is engaged in “creating a corporate image, doing public relations tasks, advertising, and other completely indecent bullshit like commenting on hotel websites”. Liza lives in the moment and she's completely uninhibited. That's how the exposed side of her life looks like. However, her inner world is far more complex and interesting: Liza is a sophisticated intellectual, she's well-read, versatile and educated, she has a sharp and swift mind, and she's prone to ironic analysis and self-analysis. Brought up with the ideals of dignity and personal freedom, Liza gets along with these ideas in a very peculiar way. Quite expectedly, her inner (eternal) life is more important, more meaningful for her than her social one; but Liza has long outgrown the "romantic worldview" (which asserts the intrinsic value of individual's spiritual life), and is quite adequate to our time when material well-being has also became an essential value.
According to the author, the novel is about a young woman “whose simple life was smashed and torn to pieces by a stern reality. She just wanted to be happy, but found herself in a situation when she needs to change everything, and emigrate to Germany. Suddenly she realized that her brother was killed in battle, and she should do something, should draw some conclusions. In most general terms, my novel is about thirty-year-olds in Russia today, about their thirst for truth and justice in the time of everyday lies, fake news, total propaganda, hybrid and real wars. It's about their willingness to resist, to fight against forces that separate the nations. Still, my novel is also about love, at least about a passionate search for love.”
Our beloved author Marina Vishnevetskaya wrote a very modern novel Eternal Life of Liza K. which is so fresh in its intonations, language, and narrative attitude. Her book is about a power of life capable of overcoming a thick darkness and utter hoplessness surrounding us today in politics, in personal and family relations, and even at work. In our poor literary garden full of weeping and wailing over the unfulfilled hopes, a lilac bush has suddenly appeared. And burst in blossom! -- Maya Kucherskaya, a literary critic
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The House That, a novel by Mariam Petrosyan
Rights sold: Belarus - GUTENBERG, Brazil - EDITORA MORRO BRANCO, Bulgaria - HERMES, Czech Republic - FRAGMENT, France – MONSIEUR TOUSSAINT LOUVERTURE, Hungary – MAGVETO, Italy – SALANI, Latvia – JANIS ROZE, Macedonia - ANTOLOG, Poland - ALBATROS, Slovenia - CANKARJEVA ZALOŽBA, Spain - EDHASA, Ukraine - KNIGOLOVE, World English - AMAZON CROSSING
2016 Lire Magazine Award for the best SiFi/Fantasy book (France)
2010 Russian Student Booker Award
2010 Russian Literary Award for the best novel
2010 NatsBest Literary Award nominee
2010 Russian Booker shortlist
2009 Big Book Russian National Literary Prize readers' open voting bronze-winner
The House That... is an extraordinary book, unexpected, fresh, of those which are impossible to put down. It is interesting that it has been published just now, when world literary trends are showing interest towards the enigmas of adolescence and the use of means far from pure realism to closely consider them. It is a current book but nothing transitory.
“The House” is the name given by the children and adolescents to the center for disabled minors they are residing, or rather interned in. The universe of The House has little, if anything, to do with that of outside; there within they've created laws, myths and their own rules, until nature itself has been become unique, independent. The resident pupils of The House haven't names, only nicknames, and are divided into groups, or better said, into packs or gangs, whose leaders fight to the death for supremacy. Their deficiencies are no more than a condition, almost a symbol, which establish their belonging to this other reality of their own design. Through the stories of various characters, the chapters separated in time, a panorama of the world of these youths has been created; limitless, fantastic, cruel, tender, completely isolated and cut-off from communication with the “real” world of the adults.
Focal points of Petrosyan’s novel are Friendship, adapting to the group, power, confrontation between the concepts of the individual freedom of the youths and the rules imposed by the educators, psychological growth, self-definition, choosing between “right” and “wrong”, love/sex/sexuality/sensuality..
The House That..., with no place for doubts, is a literary event which exceeds the borders of national literature. The work stands out with its harmony and fullness; all of the elements – language, rhythm, character development – are in perfect synchronization. The narration flows, envelopes, hypnotizes. The impact is profoundly emotional. Perhaps for this reason, difficulties arise at the hour to “explain” the work, the literary critics have had to turn to examples and have created a long list of “predecessors”: Salinger, Golding (Lord of the Flies), Faulkner (Light in August), Ken Kesey, Lewis Carroll, Ruben Gallego, Haruki Murakami, Philip K. Dick, John Steinbeck, etc. Rational, verbal resources come up short.
Petrosyan's award-winning debut novel ... is a wildly imaginative tale of epic proportions. The House, which sits overlooked on the outskirts of town, is a boarding school for disabled children and teenagers. Isolated from the Outsides, the residents of the House are enmeshed in a carefully constructed world of unspoken rules and thorny histories. The meandering narrative moves back and forth in time, alternating narrators and tenses, to paint an intricate portrait of a social order that appears ultimately dictated by an unknown force, understood by its inhabitants to be the House itself. When student deaths begin to pile up over the course of the narrative, readers can identify with newcomer Smoker as he tries to understand the mysteries of the House and the source of its power over its inhabitants. Petrosyan has created a painstakingly three-dimensional, fully inhabited world. Slowly but surely, the plot reveals itself through a gradual process of unraveling, leading readers down a sprawling rabbit hole of intrigue and mysteries, accompanied by a dizzying array of quirky denizens. Petrosyan's prose is wildly imaginative and beautifully wrought, overflowing in Machkasov's translation with rich sensory details that combine with an offbeat sense of humor to form a fully realized world. This dense, heady tale should be enjoyed by seasoned readers of literary fiction and magical realism. Although it is being marketed in the U.S. for teens, it will perhaps find its most natural audience among adult readers. An impressive—and impressively massive—feat of imagination and translation. - Kirkus Reviews
The titular house in Armenian writer Petrosyan’s massively absorbing and sometimes frustrating novel is a boarding school for physically disabled students on the outskirts of an unnamed town. The distinctly supernatural house is a three story “gigantic beehive” made up of dormitories, classrooms, and other less formal spaces, each with their own set of rules and secrets. The students—known only by nicknames bestowed upon them by their peers—divide themselves into tribes based on their assigned dormitories, and these close-knit groups work to uncover the mysteries of the house and its history while also trying to avoid war between the factions. Rich with startling details and vivid world building, the novel unfolds in alternating points of view as characters learn about how the house operates differently from the largely unknown world outsides and collectively wonder about what will happen after graduation, when they must reenter a world that they no longer know. Much of the novel consists of the students telling fairy tales to each other about the “Outsides” and what they know of the house’s past and their own place within it, building a personal mythology as a way of explaining the strange world in which they have found themselves. The witty dialogue, sharply drawn characters, and endlessly unfolding riddle of the house’s true nature buoy a narrative that sometimes seems as meandering as the hallways of the house itself, a series of entertaining anecdotes rather than a cohesive whole. But the intellectually and emotionally rewarding conclusion confirms this fantasy novel’s undeniable power. - The Publishers Weekly
The House That is a remarkable work. It’s a door leading to that new literature we all have been waiting for. – Dmitry Bykov, writer and literary critic.
The book is a brilliant and fanciful parable telling about other kids. – Yevgenia Ritz, literary critic.
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