For Sisters. About those who will suffer

Evgenia Nekrasova is a writer, one of the founders of the School of Literary Practices, a laureate of the 'Lyceum' prize for the cycle of prose 'Unhappy Moscow' and the 'Strannik/NOS' prize for the novel 'Skin'. Her debut novel 'Kalichina-Malechina' and the short story collection 'For Sisters' were shortlisted for the 'NOS' prize. Many of Nekrasova's texts have been staged in theaters, including prose from the collection 'For Sisters': a performance based on the titular story at the 'Children of Paradise' studio (dir. Yulia Skirina) and the performance 'In Rings' based on the novella 'Unhappy Moscow' at the 'Practika' theater (dir. Marina Brusnikina). The story collection 'For Sisters' features people, animals, and mythical creatures. Four rings guard Moscow, but do not always save it; an old woman turns into a young woman, but not for long. The mundane is constantly interrupted by the magical here, and conspiracies and tales easily coexist with London dialects. 'Evgenia Nekrasova shields herself with magical patterns of words and fantasies from the madness of this world, from the discomfort of cramped apartments, from abandoned children and elderly people, from exhausted passengers of electric trains. Standing with her in her little house is eerie, though still fun, but this fun rushes down on a sled from an icy Russian hill.' Maia Kucherskaya, prose writer, head of the Creative Writing School 'Just as there is a universe of Marvel heroes, so there is a universe of Nekrasova's superheroines. We live in the same cities, travel on the same electric trains, work in the same open spaces, and struggle with the same concerns. In each story, the miracle women of our days face loneliness and poverty, fight with shame and fear, with violence and indifference. How wonderful that they are us. How frightening that we are them.' Evgenia Vlasenko, book activist 'Zhenya has her own special writing style, which you can't confuse with anyone else's. From the first line, she takes you into her world and never lets go. A significant theme in her stories for my little classes was initiation, the dying of childhood and the birth of adult life. They were fourteen years old then, and they were on the threshold of life, so through Zhenya's texts, we figured out how we should live, how not to live, how to live at all. 'For Sisters' saved us then. It sounds too pathetically, but it is what it is.' Yulia Skirina, director