Aleksei Nikitin – Bat Ami, In the Face of Fire – in Italian

new publication

Italian language edition published by Voland

Aleksei Nikitin’s novel BAT-AMI, IN THE FACE OF FIRE is not a documentary novel, but its story – inspired in part by the author‘s family history – is based on files relating to 1941-1942 secret service operations from the archives of the Ukrainian Secret Service. These sources enabled the author to tell the true story of the famous boxer Goldinov. Because the widespread theories about what happened to him – the rumours that were still circulating in Kyiv after the war – have largely proven to be false, as has old Yad Vashem version of events. The descriptions of Ukraine’s complex conflicts involving an overpowering Russian brother state, the Soviet secret service, German occupation, partisans and patriotic nationalist freedom fighters cast their shadows even onto the Ukraine of today.

The novel has been chosen by Ukrainian PEN Club among the Best Books of the Year 2021.

Aleksei Ivanov – The Geographer has drunk the Globe – in Chinese

new publication

Chinese translation published by Neo-Cogito

In the Russian province of the 90s a young teacher fights with the children of the new generation. He has been assigned to the most rebellious class. The „geography teacher“ and the teenagers, who are ready to break him, first sit in the walls of the classroom, but then outside the walls they together experience an adventure of comradeship and initiation.

Aleksei Ivanov’s novel THE GEOGRAPHER HAS DRUNK THE GLOBE pumps new blood into the channels of emotional perception through literature and lets many readers again – literally as the first time – feel very simple and familiar things: winter, love, wind, trust, loneliness, the smell of cigarette smoke, the taste of vodka, the headache of a hangover.“ GALINA YUZEFOVICH

Aleksei Fedyarov – Sfumato, Dead Birds are Flying – in Czech

new publication

Czech translation rights published by Maraton Publishers

Welcome to Russia 2032. There is peace in the world. Russia, Europe, the United States and China signed a convention with Russia: in exchange for its own security, the West no longer cares how the Russian government treats its citizens under its isolated power and only occasionally checks whether foreign policy agreements are respected. Russia is fenced and the borders are closed.

The hyper-real political landscape of Aleksei Fedyarov’s novel SFUMATO – DEAD BIRDS ARE FLYING is explicitly not post-apocalyptic, but rather develops consistently from today’s political realities.

And Fedyarov knows both sides of the barbed wire by own experience. Lawyer by education he was an investigator for the public prosecutor’s office for ten years, then later as a business man sentenced and sent to a prison camp in the Urals, today a human rights activist and head of the legal department of a Charity Fund that helps Russian prisoners and their families.

Anna Starobinets – Vixen Hill in Spanish

new publication

Spanish language edition published by Impedimenta

The newest novel VIXEN HILL by Anna Starobinets is a horror thriller in the genre of mystic realism. The action takes place in the Far East, on the border of the Soviet Union and Manchuria (China) in 1945, right after the end of World War II and the Japanese occupation of the region. The novel combines the history of the USSR, Chinese mythology, Japanese genetic engineering and Siberian shamanism.

«Starobinets doesn‘t let the reader relax for a minute as she manages to keep up the hellish pace over seven hundred and something pages.» MEDUZA (Galina Yuzefovich)

Dmitri Danilov – Sasha, hello – in Italian

new publication

Italian language edition published by Voland Editore

This new novel SASHA, HELLO by Dmitri Danilov with dystopian character moves right on the edge of the real situation in Russia. Death penalty was recently introduced as part of a project to humanize the penal system for crimes where society has no real sense of wrongdoing. Consensual sex with minors is included. However, the execution of the death penalty was humanized to the maximum. The prison is now called Combinat, you live like in a luxury hotel. Executions are no longer carried out by executioners. Instead, a warden has recently taken you out for a walk every day through the same hallway, where one fine day you will be torn to pieces by a salvo of an automatic machine gun. This can happen in three days or in thirty years. As algorithm would have it.

The main character of the book, Sergei, is reminiscent of all the key figures of the most famous anti-utopias at once, from D-503 to Josef K., but the conditions in which he is placed have never been told in such a way.

Double awarded by non-governmental institutions: Book of the Year 2022 (by Russian publisher’s community) and Yasnaya Polyana Award 2022 (sponsored by Samsung)

Dmitri Danilov – Sasha, hello – in Spanish for Latin America

new publication

Spanish language edition for Latin America published by Ediciones del Lirio

Dmitri Danilov’s double award winning novel SASHA, HELLO! is welcoming us to the new Russia. Prisons are now called Combinat, you live like in a luxury hotel. Executions are no longer carried out by executioners. Instead, a warden takes you out for a walk every day through the same hallway, where one fine day you will be torn to pieces by a salvo of an algorithm controlled machine gun. This can happen in three days or in thirty years. As luck would have it. All humane, because you actually don‘t notice anything and can go on living your life as before.

The main character of the book is reminiscent of all the key figures of the most famous anti-utopias at once, from D-503 to Josef K., but the conditions in which he is placed have never been told in such a way. This novel moves right on the edge of the real.

Maria Galina – Dar Prize 2025

new award

Dar Prize 2025 for Maria Galina

The book NEAR THE WAR by Maria Galina has been awarded the Dar Prize 2025. Maria Galina has declined the award and wrote an open letter about her refusal. She also sent a statement to the jury and organizers. Both documents are published on the website of Dar Prize with a statement by Mikhail Shishkin as chairman of the jury.

These diary-like notes by Maria Galina are titled NEAR THE WAR because they are not about the war, but about the new everyday life that was caused and created by the war. They are autobiographically rooted painful descriptions of metamorphoses from Russian to Ukrainian, from life in Moscow to Odesa, from old to new communities. This book is not about the aggressors or the chaos they cause, not about who is right and who is wrong. It is about an author‘s return to her city like Odysseus has reached Ithaca again.

Aleksei Ivanov – The Food Shack in English

new publication

World English translation published by Glagoslav

Aleksei Ivanov’s novel THE FOOD BLOCK is a very tricky vampire novel about a highly topical ideological conflict that runs through the entire book on many levels: Independence of thought, dreaminess, the urge for freedom and the attempt to understand our complicated world – as a counterpart to the simple answers and blunt rules that have always been and still are set up, out of laziness of thought or just to enslave people. A novel that is not only straightforward and strong like a wooden post, but also follows the rules of the genre so well, that the reader doesn‘t even notice how he has already been bitten and infected.

Anna Starobinets – Beastly Crime Chronicles series in Dutch

new publication

Dutch re-edition of Vol. 1 by Azboeka

In Dutch language there already had been the translation of Vol. 1 of Anna Starobinets‚ children’s detective series BEASTLY CRIME CHRONICLES.  Now we are happy to have found a new and newly founded publisher who is enthousiastic about taking over and continuing with the full series.

All the heroes of this book series are animals, but they know how to love and hate, lie and tell the truth to their face, trust and despair, betray and save – no worse and no better than us humanoid readers. Who is friend and who is foe, who is an innocent, fluffy victim, who is a deadly female predator, who is a hostage and who is an intruder, you only find out at the end, because according to the rules of the genre, the perpet- rator always remains unknown until the very end.

“A children’s detective is a rare genre, and a children’s psychological detective is an even more unique one. A spectacular literary event.“ PSYCHOLOGIES

Berlin Book Fair for Russian Literature

new event

Wiedling Literary Agency goes Berlin April 3-5

A book fair for Russian-language literature will take place in Berlin from April 3-6. The fair will not only offer a wide range of events, but also, and especially, showcase newly established Russian-language exile publishers. The fair aims to provide authors, publishers, critics, and readers with an overview of uncensored Russian-language book culture, as well as an opportunity for a free exchange of ideas.

Five authors represented by the agency will be present in person for panels and presentations: Anna Berseneva, Valery Bochkov, Igor Eidman, Mikhail Shishkin, and Anna Starobinets.