Vera Bogdanova, "Pavel Zhang and Other River Creatures," Moscow: AST, 2021

While readers await Vera Bogdanova's new book, we might recall her almost dystopian 2021 novel: a bleak future, where technology increasingly permeates and replaces life, and the embrace of Russia and China tightens even more tightly around the common man, even to the point of microchipping the population. Despite its fantastical setting, this work is very real: about trauma and its resolution, guilt and the thirst for retribution, freedom and moral choice, and the search for a father and one's purpose. The book has several layers: cyberpunk blends with mythology, detective fiction with social novel, but in the reader's mind, they coexist perfectly.

"Pasha was depicted looking worried, half-turned, just like in the cover image of the viral video that went viral this spring. At the bottom, they always added "NO CHIPS" or "NO SURVEILLANCE."