Sergei Lebedev – författare

Compiled before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and completed in its shadow, this groundbreaking anthology brings together voices from across two centuries of Russian literature – voices of exile and resistance, of defiance and survival.From the golden age of the nineteenth century to the contested present, these are stories that speak from within and against empire, censorship, and war. This collection confronts the cultural complicity of the Russian language while celebrating its power to resist.Edited by Sergei Lebedev – 'the best of Russia’s younger generation of writers' (The New York Review of Books) – the anthology is structured around five interrelated but distinct literary strands:1. Classical Russian literature2. Emigrant literature written in exile3. Soviet censored literature4. Uncensored Soviet literature5. Post-Soviet literatureHere you will find tales smuggled through samizdat, penned in prison cells, whispered in exile, and shouted into the void. They are stories that survived the Tsar’s censors, Stalin’s purges, and Putin’s propaganda. The result is a battlefield of ideas, where incompatible truths collide and endure, and which serves to prove the great power of the word; the magical power that literature has always wielded – particularly in Russia.Reviews for Sergei Lebedev:'One of Russia's most interesting young novelists' Anne Applebaum'Lebedev is arguably the best of Russia's younger generation of writers' New York Review of Books'One of modern Russia's finest writers' Philippe Sands

“Ghosts are not born by themselves. They are born of a silent conscience. They are as real as the ignored knowledge of crimes and the refusal to accept real responsibility. They are the distorted voice of the dead turned into mystical images. The voice of unwanted witnesses.”A Present Past is a collection of short stories that brings to vivid life a post-Soviet world haunted by the secrets and crimes of its past. It features a judge overcome by the weight of his ruling, the stories within the old Soviet cemeteries, discovered objects that transport us to another time and the documents of the KGB. Seamlessly blending history with fiction, politics with individualism, reality with magic, the eleven tales explore the unacknowledged crimes of the Soviet Union and Russian State, and show how the devastating sins of the past pervade the present.

The extraordinary new novel by the author of Untraceable.A sealed shaft in a Donbas coal mine contains unimaginable horror: layer upon layer of human bodies, the victims of Red and White terror during the Revolution, of Stalin’s purges, of the Einsatzgruppen in the Holocaust.Around this infamous pit, in a polluted region convulsed once again by war and cruelty when Russia invades Ukraine, the fates of four characters intertwine: a mysterious and powerful laundress whose dedication to cleaning the filth created by the mine attracts the suspicion of the secret police; her innocent daughter Zhanna, left alone by her mother’s death; a brutal Russian militia man, who targets Zhanna; and his boss, a former KGB man turned ruthless servant of Putin. The voice of The Engineer, a murdered Jew who designed and constructed the mine, is a witness to the bloody history of the region and the terrible secret at its heart.A haunting, lyrical meditation on the legacy of dictatorship and atrocity.

The extraordinary new novel by the author of Untraceable.A sealed shaft in a Donbas coal mine contains unimaginable horror: layer upon layer of human bodies, the victims of Red and White terror during the Revolution, of Stalin’s purges, of the Einsatzgruppen in the Holocaust.Around this infamous pit, in a polluted region convulsed once again by war and cruelty when Russia invades Ukraine, the fates of four characters intertwine: a mysterious and powerful laundress whose dedication to cleaning the filth created by the mine attracts the suspicion of the secret police; her innocent daughter Zhanna, left alone by her mother’s death; a brutal Russian militia man, who targets Zhanna; and his boss, a former KGB man turned ruthless servant of Putin. The voice of The Engineer, a murdered Jew who designed and constructed the mine, is a witness to the bloody history of the region and the terrible secret at its heart.A haunting, lyrical meditation on the legacy of dictatorship and atrocity.

'A thriller dipped in poison... Lebedev shares some of le Carré's fascination with secret worlds and the nature of evil' New York TimesAn extraordinary and angry Russian novel about poisons of all kinds: physical, moral and political.Professor Kalitin is a ruthless, narcissistic chemist who has developed an untraceable, extremely lethal poison called Neophyte while working in a secret city on an island in the Russian far east. When the Soviet Union collapses, he defects and is given a new identity in Germany.After an unrelated Russian is murdered with Kalitin's poison, his cover is blown and he's drawn into the German investigation of the death. Two special forces killers with a lot of Chechen blood on their hands are sent to silence him – using his own undetectable poison. Their journey to their target is full of blunders, mishaps, holdups and accidents.Praise for Sergei Lebedev:'One of Russia's most interesting young novelists takes on Putin, poison and power in this unique novel; Lebedev provides a fascinating window on modern Russia' Anne Applebaum'Turn off your television sets and get reading. Sergei Lebedev writes not of the past, but of today' Svetlana Alexievich'Lebedev's books dealt with history – it lay like a shadow over everything he wrote – and the fact that its presence was so powerful suggested that the conflicts and tensions inherent in it were still unresolved, still had a bearing on Russian society in obscure yet palpable ways' Karl Ove Knausgaard

One of the first twenty-first century Russian novels to probe the legacy of the Soviet prison camp system by one of Russia's finest young writers. A young man travels to the vast wastelands of the Far North to uncover the truth about a shadowy neighbour who saved his life, and whom he knows only as Grandfather II. What he finds, among the forgotten mines and decrepit barracks of former gulags, is a world relegated to oblivion, where it is easier to ignore both the victims and the executioners than to come to terms with a terrible past.This disturbing tale evokes the great and ruined beauty of a land where man and machine worked in tandem with nature to destroy millions of lives during the Soviet century. Emerging from today's Russia, where the ills of the past are being forcefully erased from public memory, this masterful novel represents an epic literary attempt to rescue history from the brink of oblivion.

From the critically acclaimed author of Oblivion comes Year of the Comet, a story of a Russian boyhood and coming of age as the Soviet Union is on the brink of collapse.An idyllic childhood takes a sinister turn. Rumours of a serial killer haunt the neighbourhood, families pack up and leave town without a word of warning, and the country begins to unravel. Policemen stand by as protesters overtake the streets, knowing that the once awe-inspiring symbols of power they wear on their helmets have become devoid of meaning.Lebedev depicts a vast empire coming apart at the seams, transforming a very public moment into something tender and personal, and writes with stunning beauty and shattering insight about childhood and the growing consciousness of a boy in the world.

Liberties, a Journal of Culture and Politics, is essential reading for those engaged in the cultural and political issues of our time. In this issue of Liberties: Michael Ignatieff - The Mind’s EmancipationMary Gaitskill - The Trials of the YoungSergei Lebedev - Putin’s Philosopher: A MemoirMichael Walzer - Moral ConcernJustin E. H. Smith – The Happiness Industrial ComplexAndrew Scull – The Fashions in TraumaDavid A. Bell – The Triumph of Anti-Politics in AmericaMichael Kimmage – A Defense of Delight in a Dark TimeRobert Alter – Proust and the Mystification of the JewsSteven B. Smith – What is a Statesman?Benjamin Moser – Rembrandt’s shadowsHelen Vendler – The Poetry of CharmCeleste Marcus – Priorism, or the Joshua Katz AffairLeon Wieseltier – Problems and Struggles; andNew poems by Karen Solie, Adam Zagajewski, and John HodgenPublished quarterly, Liberties, is a collection of the most significant writers today as well as launching the voices of tomorrow.Liberties features serious, independent, stylish, and controversial essays by significant writers and introduces the next generation of writers and poets to inspire and impact the intellectual and creative lifeblood of today’s culture and politics. Nobel Prize winners, leading op-ed writers, well-known non-fiction writers, rising talents, and poets from around the world are part of the Liberties series.There’s a reason why engaged citizens, cultural warriors, political leaders, opinion makers, and activists from across the cultural and political spectrum read and cherish Liberties.