Pioneer Summer: A Novel

(Hardback)

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This star-crossed gay romance is a #1 bestselling TikTok sensation that made international news and catalyzed one of Russias largest-ever crackdowns on LGBTQ representation

The banned gay romance that took Russia by storm . . .

In the waning days of the Soviet Union, two teenage boys find each other at Pioneer Camp, a patriotic summer program similar to the Boy Scouts. Yury Konev, 16, anticipates the weeks ahead of him with boredom and dread, but things change when he meets 19-year-old counselor Volodya. The two boys are drawn to each other, and though both fear the consequences of their illegal attraction, its gravity pulls them together.

Now, 20 years later, Yury returns to the abandoned camp to reminisce on the relationship that changed his life foreverand discovers that not all history is destined to remain in the past.

Cowritten by a UkrainianRussian duo and originally published by an independent publisher, Popcorn Books, Pioneer Summer became a TikTok sensation and runaway #1 bestseller in Russia. Catalyzed by this success, Russian Parliament officials and anti-LGBT activists began a campaign to ban the novel and others like it, an effort which became law just two months after the second book in the series was published. The authors were forced to flee the country, and Popcorn Books ceased publication.

But theyand wewill not be so easily cowed. Beginning in the summer of 2025, Pioneer Summer will become available for the first time in English, with the other two novels to follow.

Reviews

[Pioneer Summer] sensitively charts the process of falling in love for the first time. The relationship between Yury and Volodya, blossoming in difficult circumstances, is tenderly described. It is, at heart, a classic story of young love triumphing, however briefly, against the odds. . . .The book is more than a breakout hit. It is also the catalyst for the latest legislative assault on L.G.B.T.Q. rights in Russia. * NEW YORK TIMES *
As the story unfolds, it reinforces the message that theres nothing abnormal about gay desire, evoking the sweetness and innocence of young love as well as its emotional torments in ways that feel powerfully universal. Its a delightful tale of self-determination. * Publishers Weekly *
The #1 bestselling TikTok sensation that sent readers into a frenzy, made international news, and catalyzed one of Russias largest-ever crackdowns on LGBTQ+ representation is publishing in English for this first time this June. Pioneer Summer follows 16-year-old Yurka, who is sent off to a summer camp and finds himself drawn to an older boy who leads the theater department. The consequences of acting on their attraction to each other would be severe but that doesnt change how they feel about each other. * QUEERTY *
If youre up for a little romance this summer (and who isnt), then look for Pioneer Summer: A Novel by Kateryna Sylvanova and Elena Malisova, translated by Anne O. Fisher. * The Washington Blade *

Author Bio

Elena Malisova was born in a provincial Soviet town in the late 1980s, where she lived until she moved to Moscow in the late 2000s. Growing up, she wrote poems that were published in small local newspapers. Sylvanova and Malisova met in 2016 and together began working on Pioneer Summer. In 2022, amid a wave of death threats both authors were receiving, Elena left Russia. She currently lives in Germany. Kateryna Sylvanova was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine. After graduating from university, she moved to Russia, where she worked in a shoe store and spent her free time writing. In 2022, after Russia began its full-scale war against Ukraine, Kateryna left Russia and returned to Kharkiv. Anne O. Fisher's most recent translation is Ukraine War, Love: A Donetsk Diary by Ukrainian writer, journalist, and historian Olena Stiazhkina. Fisher and her husband, Derek Mong, are the incoming coeditors of the literary journal At Length. Read more at www.anneofisher.com. She condemns Putins ongoing war of aggression on Ukraine.