Diverse in form and style, “Amanat” gathers 13 female Kazakhstani voices, revealing the lives, stories, and histories of a nation emerging from the Soviet collapse. Through the 24 stories written over the past 30 years – translated from Kazakh and Russian – the collection explores nostalgia, politics and change, tracing struggles, joys and losse...

On a two‑month journey through 1961 Armenia, nearing the end of his life, Vasily Grossman abandons war reportage and censorship to wander ancient villages, mountains and churches – sketching the lives, voices and warmth of ordinary Armenians. Full of empathy, reflection and quiet wonder, “An Armenian Sketchbook” reveals a land and a soul in fl...

“Birds, Beasts and a World Made New” presents poems by Guillaume Apollinaire and Velimir Khlebnikov in translation by Robert Chandler – two daring modernist voices who reimagined animals, humanity and war with wild creativity. Their verse – vivid, surprising, urgent – invites readers on a journey through love, loss, art and a world remade. A rev...

In “Endling”, a quirky Ukrainian scientist lives in a battered RV, racing to save the last snail of its species. She crosses paths with two sisters running a mail‑order bride revenge scheme – until their plan collides with the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. In Reva’s wrenching novel, absurdity, grief and survival converge under a fight for existence....

“Moscow Underground” follows Anton Belkin, an Investigator in Stalinist Russia, reluctantly drawn into a murder linked to the new metro excavation. Torn between duty, past love, and deadly political intrigues, he uncovers secrets that could change the future. A gripping,suspenseful thriller of life, death, and power under Stalin’s tyranny. Mosco...

On the longest winter night in Berlin, two women – both emigrés from the Soviet collapse, one from Ukraine, the other from Russia – sit in silence. As their memories stir, decades of diasporic history, queer survival, Jewish identity and war emerge. “Nadezhda in the Dark” unspools an intimate, lyrical reckoning of love, loss, identity – and hope...

Through the eyes of Sadyk, a boy raised in a mountain village of Azerbaijan, “People and Trees” spans before, during, and just after WWII – a time when Soviet power uproots centuries‑old ways: mosques vanish, land is seized, and collective farms rise. This lyrical book evokes childhood, loss, resilience, and a world forever altered by history. A...

The sensationally popular book that catalysed Russia’s “LGBT propaganda” ban. It’s 1986 at a Soviet pioneer camp, and 16‑year‑old Yurka expects a dull summer. Instead he meets Volodya, his camp counselor – and finds a connection that changes everything. Years later, Yurka returns to the abandoned camp and uncovers memories that refuse to stay hi...

In “Pushkin Hills”, struggling writer Boris Alikhanov becomes a guide at Pushkin’s rural estate, encountering absurd colleagues, snobbish visitors, and ex‑KGB officers – while trying to avoid his wife’s plea to emigrate. Darkly comic and tinged with melancholy, it’s a witty, bittersweet meditation on ambition, exile and the writer’s place in t...

The inspiration behind Tarkovsky’s cult film “Stalker”. After a mysterious alien visitation, the “Zone” is cordoned off, filled with bizarre artifacts and lethal anomalies. Stalkers risk their lives to scavenge its treasures. Roadside Picnic is a dark, philosophical sci‑fi tale of greed, curiosity, and the consequences of contact with the unknow...

A feverish train ride across a frozen Soviet winter meets a 1867 honeymoon in Baden‑Baden for Fyodor Dostoyevsky and his wife Anna. Tsypkin weaves their ecstatic love, compulsive gambling and inner demons with his own obsessive pilgrimage in the writer’s footsteps – a dreamlike collision of past and present, passion and exile, memory and longing...

Four girls grow up together in a Tbilisi courtyard as the USSR collapses – Dina, Nene, Ira and Keto. Their friendship endures first loves, mob wars, and civil strife, until a tragic death shatters their bond. Years later they reunite at a retrospective of a lost friend’s photos that expose both their shared past and a country’s vanished innocenc...

Set over five days in a Donbas village in 2014, Sergei Lebedev’s latest novel weaves four perspectives – a returning student, a covert militia member, a former KGB general, and an engineer – around the mysterious White Lady of the village’s abandoned mine. A haunting exploration of memory, trauma, and the dark undercurrents shaping war and socie...

When a strange circus arrives in a quiet Hungarian town – offering only a stuffed whale – fear, rumours and chaos spread like wildfire. As the social fabric unravels, citizens cling to music, ideology, or violence to reclaim order. “The Melancholy of Resistance” is a haunting allegory of collapse, fear and the illusions that hold societies tog...

In “The Stolen Heart”, young investigator Samson Kolechko is sent to crack a bizarre case: the illegal sale of meat. But when his fiancée disappears, the odd crime spirals into a dark mystery touching railway strikes, secret police intrigue and a tram accident. Kurkov offers a sharp, absurd, dark‑humoured window into chaotic post‑revol...

On a spring morning in 1876, a wealthy student ends his life – but when new recruit Erast Fandorin starts digging, the case unravels into something darker: perhaps even a global conspiracy. In “The Winter Queen”, charm, danger and intrigue move from Moscow salons to shadowy London streets – exposing a world unraveling under its own secrets. T...

In “Three Apples Fell from the Sky”, the mountain village of Maran – where gossip, miracles and old superstitions bind neighbours like family – is turned upside‑down when Anatolia, convinced she’s dying, is visited by a neighbour with an unexpected proposal. An anticipated farewell becomes the spark of unlikely romance, new life and unexpected h...

Longing and uprooted – “Toska” by Alina Pleskova is an intimate collection of poetry born from that nameless melancholy the title invokes: the ache of being “in but not of” this world. These poems trace immigrant and queer subjectivity, wrestle with capitalism’s weight – and still insist on desire for love, and for a different world altogether. ...

A multilayered exploration of poetry, authorship, and digital intelligence. In the late 1980s, poet Jon‑Perse builds a computer program to analyse and generate literature, inspired by Persian verse from his Uzbek partner. Hamid Ismailov weaves history, philosophy, and love into a dazzling postmodern ode to poetry across both time and culture. ...

Grief becomes a journey in “Wound” by Oksana Vasyakina – after her mother’s death the poet carries her ashes from Moscow to Siberia, retracing memories along harsh highways and fragile landscapes. With raw candor, she maps loss, identity and art, demanding closure and rebirth. Raw, fearless, unforgettable – “Wound” is a testament to love and l...