You have to create a paradise here that you won’t want to leave. If you manage, you’ll wish to stay yourselves. But until then, consider the job not done and that you can’t leave,” the landscape designer hears from her influential employer. Trapped, the heroine has to make a choice—either accept the fate of a powerless, helpless victim, or fight to the very end. Or maybe… love and accept everything that’s happening, and believe that paradise around us is something we create ourselves?
This is a story about love and trauma, about Stockholm syndrome and overcoming it, about secrets of nature and mysteries of the human soul, about isolation and innovation—and about what true freedom and true strength really are.
Anna B abyashkina is the author of the books “„Empty: Empty“”, “„Difference in Time“”, “„I Need You“”, and “„Before I Die“”. Laureate of the “„Debut“” award; included in the longlist of the Belkin prize and the „„Naсbest““ award. Published in Snob. Translator into Russian of Sally Rooney’s novel “Conversations with Friends.”
“In Anna Babyashkina’s novel, many incredible things happen: the job you want turns into a nightmare and absurdity, the idyllic life of an estate, as if transplanted from the late nineteenth century, hides a crime… But you deeply believe in the book from beginning to end—thanks to the author’s talent.”
Olga Slavnikova, laureate of the Russian Booker and “Yasnaya Polyana” awards, finalist of the “Big Book” prize.