Disappearing Act

Novella
Original Russian title: ФОКУС, forthcoming from Novoe Izdatel’stvo
Suhrkamp | Insel
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UK & Commonwealth (Fitzcarraldo Editions), USA & Canada (New Directions), Spanish world rights (Acantilado), Catalan (Angle), Chinese simplex rights (Yilin), Brazilian Portuguese rights (WMF Martin Fontes), Portuguese rights (Rélogio d’Agua), France (Stock), Italy (Bompiani), Netherlands (Bezige Bij), Denmark (Palomar), Sweden (Nirstedt/litteratur), Norway (Gyldendal Norsk), Finland (Siltala), Czech Republic (Akropolis), Bulgaria (Janet 45), Romania (Humanitas), Greece (Gutenberg)


Disappearing Act / Der Absprung
Novella
Original Russian title: ФОКУС, forthcoming from Novoe Izdatel’stvo

A captivating new work by an author who has been described as “Russia’s next great writer”.

Maria Stepanova’s new novella centres around an author referred to only as “M.” M. has been living in the city B. since leaving her home country, which is currently waging war on a neighbouring state. She exists in B. in a state of limbo, wracked by shame and despair over the war. Cut off from her home and her language, she finds herself unable to write. All the solid points of reference in her life seem to have dissolved, and the future is written in the stars. More than anything, she wishes...
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Maria Stepanova’s new novella centres around an author referred to only as “M.” M. has been living in the city B. since leaving her home country, which is currently waging war on a neighbouring state. She exists in B. in a state of limbo, wracked by shame and despair over the war. Cut off from her home and her language, she finds herself unable to write. All the solid points of reference in her life seem to have dissolved, and the future is written in the stars. More than anything, she wishes she could just disappear.

She sets off on a train trip to a nearby country, where she has been invited to make an appearance, but a turn of events leaves her stranded in an unfamiliar city. She has lost her phone and nobody knows where she is. Cut off from everything and everyone she knows, she feels a sense of freedom, that she can be whoever she wants. But she is constantly reeled in by memories, of childhood, of books she has read, films, tarot cards – the last remaining moorings in a world that is being washed away.

She stumbles across a group of circus performers who invite her to perform with them. For a brief moment, it seems as if M. can escape her life, her heritage, start over from scratch. Disappearing Act oscillates between reality and dream, between an oppressive present and a lost past, between life and literature.
»A disorienting piece of prose full of tricks and twists that open up individual paths to liberation.« SWR
 

»Maria Stepanova has undoubtedly opened a new chapter in the history of Russian prose. […] Everyone should read this novel.« Tomi Huttunen, Helsingin Sanomat (Finland)


»Those who have read Stepanova's debut novel, In Memory of Memory ... will recognize the same lush symbolism, flowing sentences, and spacious trains of thought in this new work. Stepanova's background as a poet is evident not only in the rhythm of the text but also in the swaying and dreamlike atmosphere of her prose … Many others have written similar observations about Russia, but Stepanova's way of turning the analysis of totalitarianism into a fairy-tale-like narrative makes the novel vibrate in a fascinating way, revealing deep cultural levels that realistic novels or traditional non-fiction cannot reach.« – Tommi Melender, Suomen Kuvalehti

»Stepanova is a master of the mirror, she is able to extract new tricks from even the well-worn form of autofiction.« Sonja Zekri, Süddeutsche Zeitung

»It’s worth reading this short novel multiple times. Only gradually do we realise that it is composed down to the last detail, beginning on the plane of language.« Sieglinde Geisel, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

»With [this novel], Maria Stepanova reveals herself as a true acrobat.« Cornelia Geißler, Frankfurter Rundschau

»[A] desperate, ironic, and dense story packed with ideas…« Gregor Dotzauer, DIE ZEIT

»With Disappearing Act, Maria Stepanova has opened a new epoch in Russian literature.« Uli Hufen, WDR

»[A] desperate, ironic, and dense story, jam-packed with ideas.« Gregor Dotzauer, DIE ZEIT

»Stepanova depicts her alter ego’s attempt to flee her identity in a highly reflexive fashion.« Jörg Plath, Deutschlandfunk Kultur

»The Russian language, my mother tongue, has devolved into a symbol for being frozen in an imaginary past. For lies. For nostalgia. For aggression. Maria Stepanova’s entire oeuvre has always been a stoic effort to resist this.« Sasha Marianna Salzmann

»Maria Stepanova has written an extremely dense text in prose that is reflexive and rich in associations, with subtle allusions and literary references, dream-like and realistic at the same time.« Ulrich Rüdenauer, Der Tagesspiegel

»Stepanova’s companionable prose balances high seriousness with self-ironizing deadpan humour. Without pretension, she erects her house of memory in the neighbourhood of Marcel Proust, Vladimir Nabokov and Sebald.« Rachel Polonsky, TLS
 
»A disorienting piece of prose full of tricks and twists that open up individual paths to liberation.« SWR
 

»Maria Stepanova has undoubtedly opened a new chapter in the history of Russian prose. […] Everyone should read this novel.« Tomi Huttunen, Helsingin Sanomat (Finland)


»Those who have read Stepanova's debut novel, In Memory of Memory ... will recognize the same lush symbolism, flowing sentences, and spacious trains...
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2024, 141 pages
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Persons

Maria Stepanova, born in Moscow in 1972, is a poet, essayist and journalist. Her works have received numerous international prizes. She has been a formative figure in Moscow’s cosmopolitan literary scenefor a good twenty years. Following the success of her first prose work Памяти памяти, she is now internationally regarded as one of Europe's most important intellectual voices.

Suhrkamp represents world rights to Maria Stepanova’s entire oeuvre.
Maria Stepanova, born in Moscow in 1972, is a poet, essayist and journalist. Her works have received numerous international prizes. She has been a...

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Holy Winter 20/21
Year of Publication: 2023
Maria StepanovaYear of Publication: 2023

The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic cut short Maria Stepanova’s stay in Cambridge, UK, in March 2020. Back in Russia, she spent the ensuing months in a state of torpor – the world...

Rights sold to:

USA & Canada (New Directions), UK & Commonwealth (Bloodaxe), Italy (Bompiani), Sweden (Nirstedt/litteratur), Greece (Vakxikon)

The Body Returns
Year of Publication: 2020
Maria StepanovaYear of Publication: 2020

Even before the international success of her first work of prose, Post-Memory, Maria Stepanova was a famous author. For twenty years, she has been contributing to shaping Moscow’s...

Rights sold to:

Italy (Bompiani)

Girls Without Clothes
Year of Publication: 2020
Maria StepanovaYear of Publication: 2020
Girls Without Clothes, Clothes Without Us, If Air – Maria Stepanova continues her endeavour of »mending life« in her new cycles of poems. They can be...
Rights sold to:

The contents of the Suhrkamp-edition are also included in the Italian selection of poems to be published by Bompiani and the Swedish edition of The Body Returns (Kroppens återkomst), published by Nirstedt/literatur in 2021. Other language rights are available.

Greece (Vakxikon)

In Memory of Memory
Year of Publication: 2018
Maria StepanovaYear of Publication: 2018

Montpellier, 1908: the photograph of a young woman by an easel or »Grandma on the barricades«, as the family calls it. Pre-Revolution portraits, postcards from Venice, Montpellier, or...

Rights sold to:

USA (New Directions), Canada (Book*hug Press), UK & Commonwealth (Fitzcarraldo Editions), Spanish world rights (Acantilado), Chinese simplex rights (China CITIC Press), Brazilian Portuguese rights (WMF Martins Fontes), Portuguese rights (Relógio D'Água), France (Stock, Paperback Sublicense: Le Livre de Poche), Italy (Bompiani), Netherlands (De Bezige Bij), Denmark (Palomar), Sweden (Nirstedt/litteratur), Norway (Gyldendal Norsk), Finland (Siltala), Korea (Bokbok Seoga), Japan (Hakusuisha), Poland (Prószyński), Czech Republic (Akropolis), Hungary (Park), Bulgaria (Janet45), Romania (Humanitas), Lithuania (Alma Littera), Croatia (Fraktura), Serbia (Booka), Slovenia (Beletrina), Turkey (CAN), Greece (Vakxikon), North Macedonia (Bata Press)