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Yakhina's novel named the best translated novel of the 2021 in France
NEW RELEASE: Yakhina's Children of the Volga in Serbia
NEW RELEASE: Buida's STALEN in France
NEW RELEASE: Shevelev's NOT RUSSIAN in France
Daniel Stein, Interpreter finalist of Kulturhuset Stadsteatern prize
NEW RELEASE: Yakhina's TRAIN TO SAMARKAND in Romania and Bosnia
Yakhina's novel is a finalist of the 2021 Prix Médicis
Yakhina's novel longlisted for the Prix Médicis
Guzel Yakhina longlisted for the 2021 European Literature Prize
Natalya Semenova wins the Art Newspaper Russia Prize
NEW RELEASE: My Father's Letters. Correspondence from the Soviet GULAG in English
NEW RELEASES: Ulitskaya's JUST THE PLAGUE in Russia, Hungary, Germany, and France
March 5, 2021: www.elkost.com is back
ELKOST website is off for maintenance
ELKOST agency at the 2019 Frankfurt book fair

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Featured titles

Conversation in the Rooms. Karamzin, Chaadayev, Herzen, and the Beginning of Modern Russia. Collected essays by Kirill Kobrin, 2018

Rights sold: Russia – NLO

This Kobrin's book is dedicated to a modernisation of Russian society in 19 century. It is about a creation of a special verbal code within the Russian language, the one used until today to discuss the most important humanitarian issues: politics, culture, social affairs, questrions of morals and ethics. Three protagonists of Kobrin's essays are Nikolai Karamzin (first European Russian writer and historian), Peter Chaadaev (his "Philosophical Letters" written in French are still a cornerstone of any discussion about relations between Russia and the West), and Alexander Herzen (first Russian socialist, Karl Marx's rival in European communist and socialist movement of that time); thanks to their efforts, the very possibility of such discussions became possible. In his essays, Kobrin shows how the Russian society accepted and transformed the ideas of enlightenment and romanticism, and applied them to the pre-existing social struggles.

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