Одсун

Aleksei Varlamov is a prose writer, philologist, author of the novels "My Soul Pavel" and "Mental Wolf", as well as biographies of Russian writers of the 20th century. He is a laureate of the "Anti-Booker", "Big Book", "Student Booker", and Alexander Solzhenitsyn Literary Prize.

The hero of the new novel by Aleksei Varlamov "Odsun" arrives in the Czech Republic in the late 2010s to give lectures on literature, but instead of a university, he finds himself in an old house in the Sudetes, once belonging to a family of Sudeten Germans. The mystery of this house and the tragic fate of its inhabitants after World War II evoke acute reflection-memory in the hero, where personal drama and what is commonly referred to as grand history converge into one.

"I sit far past midnight in the deserted 'Green Frog'. I am surrounded only by the skins of slain animals, dark mirrors, ancient cabinets, beer barrels, mugs, and empty television screens, but I feel that I am still not alone in this world where borders and times have become entangled. Shadows surround me, I hear distant laughter, exclamations, foreign coarse speech, but we cannot intersect."