Facets: A Collection of Short Stories

“The world is multifaceted, and each of us has their own facet. Drama is inside us.” 6 facets of talent — 6 stories about creativity, art, and the search.

The stories were published at different times in well-known literary journals of Russia, Germany, Denmark, and Israel. By genre, they are close to “magical realism.” The main leitmotem is creativity and searching for one’s place in the world.

1. The Art of Living (Art de vivre) by Jacqueline de Gё
A story about the formation of the French theater of cruelty. “On the stage, we play our own lives” (Antonin Artaud).

2. My Name Is Cléo by Jacqueline de Gё
A story-game, an allusion, a descent into the subconscious—so deep as far as it’s possible. Sometimes our future is just memories of the past.

3. Izо-lda by Irina Anokhina
How is great music born? In silence? Or is it only a lingering echo of a noisy, never-stopping existence? Does a genius create it? Or a life-loving musician? Music is life’s purified melody.

4. The Look of Water by Irina Anokhina
Freedom is always the other side of loneliness. Probably every woman has, one way or another, had to choose between family and creativity—between being (only) a Muse and creating her own life herself.

5. Repainting by Jacqueline de Gё
A story about the Artist and the search for the perfect color, about the true and the fake in the world of painting and human feelings. It is dedicated to a problem that is still relevant today: the falsification of masterpieces of art.

6. Through Asphalt by Jacqueline de Gё
A city-story, a script that is born before our very eyes. Two in the City. There is something he can entrust her with, and there is nothing left for her to do but record his secret. And the blooming flower dies.