Mikhail Kukin (born in 1962) started his studies at the Faculty of Cybernetics at MIFI but abruptly changed his life and joined the army. He served in the Western Ukraine near the town of Khotin. After the army, he studied at the Philological Faculty of Moscow State Pedagogical Institute. Currently, he gives lectures on the history of culture. His poems were published in many Russian literary journals.
After a century of brooding and talking telepathically to his Mausoleum janitor from his glass coffin, Vladimir Lenin awakens—alive and bewildered in the modern world.
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.
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
