Mga

An up-to-date novel about how perception is broken and how the language of lies works. The protagonist returns home after a forced emigration, sees devastation all around, but is insistently told, “It’s all already behind you.” The gap between what is obvious and what is being instilled becomes the backdrop to a personal catastrophe and gradually pushes him toward madness.

Dense, poetic, symbolic style. Fires turn into an image of burnout—of love, memory, and consciousness itself.

For fans of C. A. Terina’s тревожная symbolic prose (“All My Birds”) and G. Voronin’s (“Disruption of Order”), as well as contemporary intellectual dystopia.

Дарья Промч is a prose writer and poet, author of the novel “Искус” and three poetry collections.

In Дарья Промч’s novel «Мга», Ignat (Iggy) is a poet and dreamer, as well as an auto mechanic inclined to painful reflection. After a long absence—brought about by wildfires and the mobilization to eliminate the disaster’s aftermath—he returns to his hometown. There he is met by an absurd, heavy reality: broken families, mass death, and the desperate, almost theatrical attempt by loved ones to pretend that life continues as before. Gradually, the boundaries between order and chaos, truth and self-deception are erased—and the hero sinks deeper and deeper into the fog of his own mind.

"«Мга» by Дарья Промч is an antidote to muteness and a gulp of air. While reading this impeccably written novel, the smoke tears at your throat: the world here is engulfed in fire—fires burn, houses blaze, and people burn. But in the end you suddenly understand that you can breathe again (МАЙЯ КУЧЕРСКАЯ)".

"This is a bright and furious text: the story of a young man who searches for a way through a world of imposed notions. A novel of resistance and the search for truth where the line between illusion and reality disappears (ЕЛЕНА ШУБИНА)".

"This is a desperately important and brave book—about us, about all of us (МАРИНА СТЕПНОВА)".