Gods of the Steppe

(Paperback)

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It is the summer of 1945. The Allies have triumphed in Europe and Hitler has vanished. But with Japanese forces gathering just across the border in occupied China, brutal warfare on Russian soil remains a real and constant threat to Soviet life. For Petka, a rambunctious twelve-year-old boy with dreams too big for his tiny village of Razgulyaevka, the prospect of invasion is dangerously thrilling. He watches the Red Army troops march off to engage the enemy, and wages his own war-against boredom, bullies, and his lot in life as a bastard in a backwoods world. Secretly raising a wolf in his grandmother's goat barn, happily raising hell with the local troops, stowing away in a shipment of bootleg booze destined for the combat zone, and defying death by the noose, Petka eagerly takes all he can from life, with an irrepressible spirit. Nominated for the 2014 Rossica Translation Prize.

Reviews

"Gelasimov excels in conveying the essence of Petka's play, which, like all true play, is at once fanciful and painstakingly serious. His narration is attuned not only to the vocabulary of the playful mind, but to the protean pace of its concerns as well...By the end of the book it is clear that Gelasimov interprets war, with its obsessive focus on rules of conduct and guarantee of travel and high adventure, as the dreadful apotheosis of play...Schwartz's translation [gives] the care and respect that such a very rich, good book deserves." Bookslut

Author Bio

Andrei Gelasimov was born in Irkutsk, one of the largest cities in Siberia, in 1965. He went on to study foreign languages at the Yakutsk State University, as well as directing at the Moscow Theater Institute. In 2001 he came to popular literary acclaim in Russia when his story "A Tender Age," which he originally published on the Internet, was included in an issue of the journal Oktyabr, and his novella and collection of short stories, Fox Mulder Looks Like a Pig, was released. Gods of the Steppe is his third novel to be published in English, following Thirst, for which Booklist praised "Gelasimov's spare prose and pointed dialogue," and The Lying Year, which was developed into a motion picture. Gelasimov's work has garnered the Apollon-Grigorev prize and a Belkin prize nomination. Gods of the Steppe won the 2009 National Bestseller award in Russia.