Ksenia Buksha is the author of the award-winning novel “Freedom Plant” and the short story collection “Opens inward.”
Her prose blends hard realism and lyricism, humor and grotesque.
“Churov and Churbans” is a short novel full of cinematic momentum, an unpredictable plot, and a thick, somewhat gloomy St. Petersburg atmosphere. You live, live, and suddenly you find out you have a double whose heart beats in sync with yours. Not just a double—a former classmate: either a straight-A student or, on the contrary, a suspicious type you can’t possibly have anything in common with in life.
Nothing—except death.
“They measured three minutes. At the end of the first, Misha and Karina said ‘fifty-seven’ together but quietly; at the end of the second, unexpectedly and out of sync, both said ‘seventy-one’; and at the end of the third minute they said nothing, but looked at each other—and then Karina asked:
— Sixty-five?”