Saspyga

A mystical horror inspired by the myths of Altai. Read by Viktoriya Isakova

A novel about how you can run from yourself—but there will be no way back.

In Altai, far from civilization, a tourist named Asya disappears from a horseback tour group. On the search goes Katya, a cook, who isn’t driven so much by the desire to find an ill-prepared city girl as by a strange feeling that what’s happening is unreal.

In old ravines, their own laws apply. Here the wind keeps names long forgotten, and in the night stillness only the gentle clinking of horse tack can be heard. And if you stare into the darkness for too long, it starts to stare back. Here the dead return, and the living vanish without a trace, dissolving into the dense forest thickets. Locals say that a saspyga lives here—a inaccessible, desirable, unpredictable being. They don’t talk about it out loud and don’t call it by name, but everyone knows: if you meet a saspyga, you will lose the road back forever.

This tense, soul-chilling thriller will make even the steadiest skeptics doubt reality. Here the boundaries between the real and the imagined blur into something unrecognizable; the picturesque forest turns into a suffocating, closed space; and, following the traditions of “The Sandman” by E.T.A. Hoffmann, the heroes can no longer rely on their eyes and ears. How do you keep your composure when a commanding call beckons you to follow?

Listen to this magnetic performance by the incredible Viktoriya Isakova.

Press on the book:

“There are authors who can write precisely—and with love—about places and people, making them warm, vivid, and recognizable. There are authors who know how to tell dizzyingly gripping stories. Those who can do both—are rare. Karina Shainyan’s novel is at once an immediately gripping, terrifying horror, a tense psychological drama, and an inspired hymn to Altai land,” — Galina Yuzefovich

“‘Saspyga’ is a journey into a world where everything is real: mountains, horses, people, and demons. The pain they all experience is real too—and because of that sincerity, straightforwardness, and clarity, it becomes either very scary or you really want to cry. Karina wrote an important and beautiful book,” — Anna Kozlova

“Shainyan may have invented a new subgenre—‘Altai Gothic.’ In her novel, the fate of a modern city girl is woven into the mythology of the Mountain Altai. The taiga, the mountains, the horses—and the saspyga, an at once mythical and real creature whose flesh can assuage all sorrows…” — Yuliya Gumen