Oksana Vasyakina "Rose" M.: NLO, 2024 (2nd edition)

The genre here is simpler. Critics boldly classified Vasyakina's two previous novels, "The Wound" and "The Steppe," as autofiction—that is, a special kind of autobiographical prose. "The Rose" completes the trilogy, and the very symbolism of its title promises a wealth of meaning. At the center is a story of loss: the death of a loved one. The central traumatic event simultaneously serves as the focal point and fades into the background, revealing to the narrator/heroine's memory a world of small, everyday details, portrait elements, fragments of phrases, family stories and rituals, and, more broadly, the life of an ordinary (almost classically, "little") person. Basically, life as it is.

"When she was born, she was brought to the sixth-floor apartment and placed in a crib. A few years later, a fold-out sofa was installed in the crib's place, and Svetlana began sleeping on it. When the sofa became completely unusable, a couch took its place. She died on that couch."