Vitaliy Pukhanov was born in 1966 in Kiev. He is the author of five books of poetry, including The Wooden Garden (Moscow, 1995), The School of Mercy (Moscow, 2014), and To Alyosha (St. Petersburg, 2020). From 2003-2016, he was in charge of the literary prize Debut. Since 2019, he has been in charge of the Poetry Prize. Winner of the Novyi Mir prize (2011), Anthologia prize (2014), etc.
When Clea returns to London with her new Russian husband, she is surprised to see him become even more eccentric.
A haunting dystopia some readers have called “the new 1984.” In a society where memory is rewritten and resistance is pre-approved, freedom isn’t restricted; it’s redefined. As systems evolve beyond human control and choice becomes a simulation, true defiance means refusing the script, even when the system already knows you will.
“13 short pieces…pungently convey the effects of growing up under a totalitarian regime.” .—Publishers Weekly
Original poetry by Nina Kossman, accompanied by a selection of poems by Marina Tsvetaeva, translated from Russian by Kossman. “The sea is a postcard,” writes Nina Kossman. There is both something elemental in this vision and—iron-tough.”
—Ilya Kaminsky