Julia Kissina
| Vesna na lune | Springtime on the Moon Novel. Azbooka. St. Petersburg 2012/ Fabula. Ukraine 2017. 245 pages |
A rebellious and visionary girl grows up in the milieu of the bourgeois Jewish intelligentsia in a high-rise building on the outskirts of Kyiv's old town. Demolition excavators lay entire streets in rubble and ash, decay and dissolution prevail all around. While her father, who lives in constant fear of being denounced, writes lyrics for a circus show, the twelve-year-old finds salvation in letters she writes to herself in the near and distant future. And she discovers Lunatism: a heightened self-awareness in the moonlight, with which she can escape the demands of an oppressive reality - her school friend, who emulates the poet Marina Zvetajeva, initiated her into the art of necromancy. And so she talks at night with the leaders of the world proletariat.
Sad, angry, gifted with visionary language, Yulia Kissina describes her Soviet childhood against the background of the physical and ideal decay of the city of Kyiv and its inhabitants. The museums and park benches, the winding alleys and backyards of the old town with their dying evening light in the dirty puddles remain unforgettable for the reader.
