Maxim Osipov, “It’s a Sin to Complain,” Moscow: “CORPUS,” 2009

Doctor and writer Maxim Osipov is currently working on the anthology "The Fifth Wave," whose authors share a "rejection of war and totalitarianism." Osipov's medical notes, seemingly written in a previous life, were, in turn, united by a humanistic interest in the characters—not so much patients with symptoms, but people with souls. In 2009, the stories were compiled into a collection, "Sin to Complain," and became resonant: a doctor who traded a career in the capital for a hospital in Tarusa noticed the lingering emptiness within a person beyond the Moscow Ring Road. The book, however, turned out to be life-affirming. Osipov's medical specialty, cardiology, gave the collection a heartfelt tone that even today allows readers to remain compassionate rather than detached and disillusioned.

"A man with heart failure, unless his wife is at his side, is doomed to die soon. This idiocy begins in adolescence and then progresses."