Kalechina-Malechina

A novel about despair and misunderstanding, about searching for sympathy and mercy—and about the fact that becoming a monster is easy if no one loves you.

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Music for the audiobook is provided by the ensemble “Repey.”

Girl Katya lives with her parents in a small town on the 11th floor of an ordinary panel building. In Katya’s world, a snake with a sharp snout appears from a factory smokestack; stains on the ceiling turn into human figures; and stacks of number columns become poems. But the world around Katya doesn’t need her: the “un-grown” tease her, while the “grown-ups” don’t have the strength and time for her. And Katya finds an escape. But then Kikimora interferes—one who lives behind the stove in the kitchen…

Together, they set off on a dangerous journey and, by accident, end up more cruel than those who crippled them.

In the new novel “Kalechina-Maléchina,” magical realism, folklore, and experimentation come together.

The heroine of “Kalechina-Malechina” is both the Russian Holden Caulfield and such a small, still non-drinking Venička. But Holden had his own nonconformism, and Venička—there’s the woman at the platform in Petushki and the angels of heaven. And Katya has no one! And then—Kikimora.