Russian / Russia
Den' materi
(Den materi)
(Mother’s Day)
Bogatyrëva, Tat’jana
(Bogatyreva, Tatyana)
(text)
Šarikova, I. V.
(Sharikova, I. V.)
(illus.)
Moskva: Rosmėn, 2015. – 142 p.
(Series: Nastojaščee vremja [Nastoyashchee vremya])
ISBN 978-5-353-07225-6
Youth | Family | Dysfunction | Search for identity
Reading age: 12+
White Ravens issue: 2016
This little volume contains two stories. “Mother’s Day” and “The fleers” from Petersburg author Tatyana Bogatyreva are examples of young adult realist prose in contemporary Russia. The book is part of the series “Nastoyashchee vremya” (Present), which Rosmėn Press started in 2015. In “Mother’s Day”, a boy named Kesha takes care of his depressed mother – a poet in despair over her broken marriage and self-obsessive, who neither has command over her own life or life with her son. Kesha, who tells the story, reveals bitter glimpses into an utterly dysfunctional environment that makes his teenage life miserable. “The fleers” is the story of three teens who become involved in crime, seek to change their ways and run away on their search for orientation in life. Episodic, direct and painful, Tatyana Bogatyreva portrays the sad circumstances of her protagonists, while readers participate as mute observers.