Overview

""A great Russian novel...in the grand Russian tradition.""-Le Figaro Russian Gothic, a short and intense novel by Belgium-based Belorussian novelist Aleksandr Skorobogatov that, since its initial publication in Russia in 1991, has gone on to sell over a million copies worldwide and hailed as an early masterpiece of post-Soviet literature, eliciting comparisons to Gogol and Bulgakov.Russian Gothicis a dark tale of the descent into paranoia and violence of Nikolai, a veteran of the Soviet-Afghan war. When a mysterious figure, Sergeant Bertrand, appears on his doorstep and starts insinuating that Nikolai's wife, Vera, may be having an affair, Nikolai's faith in his wife, the only person to stand by him after his return to civilian life, starts to crumble-with devastating consequences. Skorobogatov, the author of five critically acclaimed novels, has been published widely in Europe, butRussian Gothicis the first of his works to be translated into English. The UK edition was recently released by Old Street, garnering truly stellar reviews, including in theTelegraph(""thoroughly magnificent"") andThe Sunday TimesThree decades after it was written, its complex portrait of grief, misogyny, violence-and love-is as fresh, shocking, and relevant as ever.

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9781644284025

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Reviews

"""A violent, drunken, hallucinatory window into post-Soviet fiction."" —The Telegraph ""While themes of sexual jealousy are as old as Ovid, we rarely see partner abuse in adult fiction, and Skorobogatov’s complex psychological portrait linking it to the PTSD of war is riveting."" —The Sunday Times ""...there are many things to mark Russian Gothic, the tale of an intense, grief-stricken violent marriage blown apart by jealousy and paranoia, as an exciting prospect."" —Big Issue"

"""A violent, drunken, hallucinatory window into post-Soviet fiction."" —The Telegraph ""While themes of sexual jealousy are as old as Ovid, we rarely see partner abuse in adult fiction, and Skorobogatov’s complex psychological portrait linking it to the PTSD of war is riveting."" —The Sunday Times ""...there are many things to mark Russian Gothic, the tale of an intense, grief-stricken violent marriage blown apart by jealousy and paranoia, as an exciting prospect."" —Big Issue ""Readers won’t be able to turn away."" —Publishers Weekly starred review “[A] haunting masterpiece of jealousy and rage.” —CrimeReads"

Author Information

Aleksandr Skorobogatov was born in Grodno in what is now Belorussia. He is one of the most original Russian writers of the post-communist era. An heir to Dostoevsky, Gogol, Bulgakov, Nabokov, Pelevin, and Sorokin—the surreal line of the Russian literary canon—his novels have been published to great acclaim in Russian, Croatian, Danish, Dutch, French, Italian, Greek, Serbian, and Spanish. He won the prestigious International Literary Award Città di Penne for the Italian edition of Russian Gothic, which also received the Best Novel of the Year Award from Yunost. Cocaine (2017) won Belgium’s Cutting Edge Award for ‘Best Book International’. His most recent novel, Raccoon, was published by De Geus in 2020. De Tijd has called Skorobogatov ""the best Russian writer of the moment."" He lives and works in Belgium.

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