Apples and Snakes

Maria Nyrkova is a writer, a graduate of the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University, and a resident of the Creative House of Peredelkino. Her autofiction novel “The Bay of Patience” (2023) was warmly received by readers and critics (“a bright debut”) and was included in the long list of the “Yasnaya Polyana” award in the category “Youth.” “Apples and Snakes” is a collection of female portraits, where the heroines seek answers to questions about how to live and what to rely on in the modern world amidst everyday events. In essays, sketches, and stories, the author explores how society, traditions, and the era shape women, reflects on misogyny and friendship, freedom and unfreedom, growing up and separation, the relationship between mother and daughter… “The little angel was silent and held on. They poured something into the little angel's glass, it was bubbly and prickly, and the little angel silently drank and asked for more. They squealed with delight, while Sibylla watched silently. They kept pouring for the little angel, and he became merrier, and his body was freed, and his voice broke through, painfully and sharply roaming over the vocal cords, and the little angel suddenly spoke the truth, that he understood nothing and that it was some kind of foolishness — not to notice evil, to be evil, and not to talk about evil.”