Mikhail Shishkin

Marian Schwartz

Day after day the Russian asylum-seekers sit across from the interpreter and Peter - the Swiss officers who guard the gates to paradise - and tell of the atrocities they've suffered, or that they've invented, or heard from someone else. These stories of escape, war, and violence intermingle with the interpreter's own reading: a history of an ancient Persian war; letters sent to his son 'Nebuchadnezzasaurus,' ruler of a distant, imaginary childhood empire; and the diaries of a Russian singer who lived through Russia's wars and revolutions.

Maidenhair

Eugene Vodolazkin

Brisbane

Andrei Gelasimov

Kostoya returns from the Chechen War with a face so maimed it looks like a piece of meat. He confines himself to his lonely apartment, with no company save the vodka in his refrigerator. The woman next door checks on him regularly to see that he's still alive, and when she discovers the power his disfigured face has over her misbehaving son, he takes to using Kostoya as a disciplinary influence. His comfortable cocoon is further disrupted after his armmy buddies enlist his help to locate a missing comrade.

Thirst

Mikhail Bulgakov

Evgeny Dobrenko

White Guard, Mikhail Bulgakovs semi-autobiographical first novel, is the story of the Turbin family in Kiev in 1918. Alexei, Elena, and Nikolka Turbin have just lost their mothertheir father had died years beforeand find themselves plunged into the chaotic civil war that erupted in the Ukraine in the wake of the Russian Revolution. In the context of this familys personal loss and the social turmoil surrounding them, Bulgakov creates a brilliant picture of the existential crises brought about by the revolution and the loss of social, moral, and political certainties. He confronts the reader with the bewildering cruelty that ripped Russian life apart at the beginning of the last century as well as with the extraordinary ways in which the Turbins preserved their humanity. In this volume Marian Schwartz, a leading translator, offers the first complete and accurate translation of the definitive original text of Bulgakovs novel. She includes the famous dream sequence, omitted in previous translations, and beautifully solves the stylistic issues raised by Bulgakovs ornamental prose. Readers with an interest in Russian literature, culture, or history will welcome this superb translation of Bulgakovs important early work. This edition also contains an informative historical essay by Evgeny Dobrenko.

White Guard

Geoffrey Brock

Featuring: Marina Tsvetaeva, Yahya Kemal, Gonzalo Rojas, H©di Kaddour

Power

Two Lines

With an invasion looming at Russia's borders, Petka wages a war against boredom by secretly raising a wolf, stowing away in a shipment bound for the combat zone, and antagonizing the troops moving through the village.

Gods of the Steppe

Daria Wilke

The first young adult novel translated from Russian, a brave coming-out, coming-of-age story. In June 2013, the Russian government passed laws prohibiting "gay propaganda," threatening jail time and fines to offenders. That same month, in spite of these harsh laws, a Russian publisher released PLAYING A PART, a young adult novel with openly gay characters. It was a brave, bold act, and now this groundbreaking story has been translated for American readers. In PLAYING A PART, Grisha adores everything about the Moscow puppet theater where his parents work, and spends as much time there as he can. But life outside the theater is not so wonderful. The boys in Grisha's class bully him mercilessly, and his own grandfather says hateful things about how he's not "masculine" enough. Life goes from bad to worse when Grisha learns that Sam, his favorite actor and mentor, is moving: He's leaving the country to escape the extreme homophobia he faces in Russia. How Grisha overcomes these trials and writes himself a new role in his own story is heartfelt, courageous, and hopeful.

Marian Schwartz

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