Candles of the Apocalypse

“Don’t be afraid to become a character”: the writer gets a job at a candle boutique

“Candles of the Apocalypse” is a new book by Tatyana Zamirovskaya, a writer and journalist and the author of the novel “Deaths.net,” collections “The Earth of Random Numbers,” “Sparrow River,” and “Life Without Noise and Pain.”

A writer from Belarus living in New York sells the most expensive candles in the world in a luxury boutique. The text is about how she can’t help anyone—and how no one can help anyone.

“‘Candles of the Apocalypse’ reads like a painfully candid survival guide for a foreign country, like a textbook of tolerance and friendly curiosity, like an exciting production drama, like a witty and precise encyclopedia of types, everyday life, and manners. If someone had told me that I would be reading this book, dying laughing and then freezing with empathy and recognition, I wouldn’t have believed them. And yet,” — Galina Yuzefovich

“A charge of love and light that overcomes everything that’s in this text is desperately needed, especially against the backdrop of a ‘rapidly changing world.’ You can keep your spirits up, you can lose heart, you can catch cold in a global draft—but around us there’s always something funny, and within us there’s something cheerful,” — Maksim Mamlyga

“This is one of the brightest, wisest, easiest, most humane books I’ve ever read in my life. About the writer from Belarus who sells all kinds of unusual candles in a little New York shop. Oh, what kinds of people come into this candle shop! And what conversations they have! New York par excellence. A city epic—light, friendly, funny. How I waited for this book. There’s no death, because life and warm, cheerful stories about it exist!” — Maya Kucheretskaya