Опубликовано в журнале Дружба Народов, номер 8, 2007
MIKHAIL ZEMSKOV. Perigee. A novel.
After a long forced absence a man comes back. But where to? It seems to be his Fatherland — both places are familiar, and realities, and people… Nevertheless the country is different. Quite different. Would it really be like this some decades later? We’ll see. And in the meantime here is a version of our future in a utopia-novel with elements of phantasmagoria by a young author, the Russian Prize 2005 winner Mikhail Zemskov.
SEIDAKHMET KUTTIKADAM. A Familiar Stranger — Steppe.
“To answer the question who Kazakhs are is difficult for us — we haven’t yet found it out ourselves. Nevertheless, not much hoping for a success, we’ll try to look into some things — now seriously, now in jest”. This task the author has fulfilled brilliantly. The reader receives a lot of information on Kazakhs’ history and the present day, on their traditions, customs and regional differences. And at the same time he gets much pleasure in reading since the essay, earnest by essence, is written in easy style with a sound portion of self-irony.
CHINGIZ GUSEINOV. Five Portraits.
Samed Vurgun, Yourij Trifonov, Gennadij Aigui, Mark Saroyan, Abidin Dino — this Azerbaijani-Russian-Chuvash-American-Armenian-Turkish portrait gallery — by memory but from life, with trustworthiness of an eye-witness and sincere love for his “models” — is created by a well-known philologist and wonderful story-teller Chingiz Guseinov.
ALEXEI TZVETKOV. “Another World” Is Springing in a Hundred of Places.
London, Athens, Paris: bookshops of radicals and all-French strike, magic mushrooms and street fightings, golf at Trafalgar Square and the popular idea of “multitude” — a motley kaleidoscope of pictures from the life of today’s radical youth in the travel notes by A.Tzvetkov.
BORIS EKIMOV. About Literature and Life. A talk with DMITRIJ SHEVAROV.
— You can resettle them, but where these migrants will be working?..
— A well brought-up person, a worthy citizen of his Fatherland doesn’t need any militiamen…
— I think that people who have seized upon power forget at once whom and what they are obliged to…
— Do you think that only kolkhozes have collapsed? Such a break-up is taking place now that both literature and theater and all the culture have been ruined too…