Petrovs in the Flu and Around It

Aleksey Salnikov was born in 1978 in Tartu. He has been published in the almanac «Babylon», and the magazines «Air», «Ural», «Volga». He is the author of several poetry collections, as well as the novels «Department» and «Indirectly». He is a laureate of the «LiteratuRRentgen» award (2005) and the «National Bestseller» (2018), a finalist for the «Big Book» and «NOS». He lives in Yekaterinburg.

The novel «Petrovs in the Flu and Around It» was adapted for film by Kirill Serebrennikov.

«Salnikov writes like perhaps no one else today, namely — fresh, like the first day of creation. He knocks the ground out from under the reader’s feet at every turn, shaking the vestibular apparatus trained by years of reading “normal” books.
All the random signs encountered by the flu-stricken Petrovs in their painful half-dream are assembled into a coherent structure without a single unnecessary detail. From every crack begins to ooze such cheerful monstrosity and infernal horror that Mamleev and Gorchyev dance together, while Gogol and Bulgakov applaud.
Amazing, unique language, grounded and tangible material world, and a truly magical shimmering ambiguity (whether everything happening in the novel is the flu-induced hallucinations of the three Petrovs or the witchcraft’s hidden face of the world truly revealed for a moment) — no matter how you look at it, it’s an outstanding text and a true reader’s holiday». (Galina Yuzefovich)