ENG / RUS
125х200 (84х108/16)
hard cover, 448 pp., 2013
ISBN 978-5-4448-0116-1
Rights sold: French language, German language
Golovanov’s book Towards the ruins of Chevengur continues the genre of geopoetical works. The book contains a dazzling array of plot lines, all born from the author’s keen perception of his surroundings. In labyrinths explored by Golovanov, one might come across Lewis Carroll’s rabbit hole or Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.
The geography of the book is vast — ranging from the wastelands of Siberia and Central Asia to the mountains of Alaska. Any space is sacred for the author, who tracks the transformations of landscape and culture, as they, in turn, transform him.
The author is searching for new sources of images and meaning, and for new companions, people living lonely and unique lives. The book is written in the form of a study — a kind of experiment reminiscent of Borges, yet always fi lled with the freedom and freshness of travel and exploration.
Vasily Golovanov is a journalist and writer, the author of several books. The first one Tachankas from the South is perhaps the most interesting work on the Russian Civil War by a modern author. His second book was Island about the island of Kolguev. The book was published in French and became a bestseller in France.
And when we saw the distant land where they had once come from, having packed all their belongings, including a mountain (for in their understanding, faith was meaningless without honouring the mountains); in clouds of dust over the sweating horses and caravans decorated with colourful ribbons, the horde with all its warriors and women, with the bawling babies, sorcerers and birthing mothers, and with the passionate youths willing to start brigandage, with sheep and hunting birds, with the heavy sacred books written in Tangut language, with the bronze Buddha figurines <…>, with smoked leather kettles and Tibet bells with tongues made of sand packed in leather <…> when we saw that overwhelming expanse all filled with the trilling of the birds all the way up to the Great Wall of China, we hastily gave up our quarrels and our fears and became motionless and pure like the pillars of salt.
