The Sole Proprietress

Maya Kononenko is a poet and translator, an essayist, a prose writer.

“The Soloist” is her first major work of prose.

As the author puts it, “it’s such a toy ‘Ulysses,’ written from the point of view of a child, a girl,” combining a coming-of-age story against the backdrop of the 20th century and an intriguingly constructed system of literary allusions—from Lewis Carroll to Kafka.”

Maya Kononenko is a poet and translator, an essayist, a prose writer. Born in Alma-Ata, from the age of nine she has lived in Moscow. She graduated from the Literary Institute named after A.M. Gorky and several courses of the “Good Text” school. Her work has been published in the journals “Seans,” “Zvezda,” and “Novy Mir.”

“The Soloist” is her first major work of prose.

The traditional “family” novel here is built on a hidden fairy-tale structure, drawing the reader into an exciting game. As the author says, “it’s such a toy ‘Ulysses,’ written from the point of view of a child, a girl,” combining a coming-of-age story against the backdrop of the 20th century and a cleverly constructed system of literary allusions—from Lewis Carroll to Kafka.

The mother of the main character, Ayka, remarries for the second time, and the girl gains “another grandmother and grandfather”—with a very complicated backstory: throughout her whole life, the “new” grandfather dedicated himself to work in special services. From the Riga beach dacha, Ayka moves to the GDR, and, like an undercover spy, she will now be called differently—Anya Witruck... A quarter century later, she will finally have to deal with old childhood fears, to free the bewitched country of childhood, tormented by the same contradictions as the ones she herself carries.