Zakhar Prilepin Грех - Grekh Sin – Sunde Short stories, Vagrius, Moscow 2007 foreign rights: Ed. des Syrtes, France     Ботинки полные горячей водкой - Botinki polny goryachei vodki Boots full of hot vodka – Stiefel voll mit hei?em Vodka Short stories, AST, Moscow 2008, 188 pages foreign rights: Actes Sud, France     Санькя - Sankya Sankya Novel. Ad Marginem, Moscow 2006, 280 pages "Sankya" was the name the young Sasha was always known by in the village. The hero Sasha has since become a member of a group of political activists headed up by the charismatic Kostenko. Or perhaps one should say lured by, for the ideological demise in Russia has mixed left with right, leaving the younger generation, not willing to subject itself to Putin’s democracy, searching for a new orientation. While Kostenko is serving time for illegal firearm possession his supporters - primarily testosterone-charged young men, flanked by ethereal, educated young girls - are rioting in Moscow or organising spectacular but somewhat juvenile demonstrations. Prilepin’s is a convincing portrayal of the fact that even these seemingly senseless activities have a real, emotional basis. Even in contemporary Russia the outcome is often fatal. The Russian police take drastic measures, locking the youngsters away in prison or beating them up on the street. The activists’ nightmare then becomes reality when Yana, with whom Kostenko is having an affair and who is adored by Sasha, throws a bag full of pasta and ketchup at the President. Now the authorities give up any pretence of legality and begin to liquidate one member after the other. Sasha takes the lead in the last big coup intended to provoke those in power. From the official Russian perspective the novel is anything but politically correct. Yet it ought to be just as incorrect from the standpoint of Russian human rights activists. As with his cutting but astoundingly neutral portrayal of the Chechnya problem, here too Prilepin remains the observer, the observer of feelings. And again he achieves an insight into the emotional depths of the Russian soul. Violence begets violence in modern Russia. And one knows very little about it abroad. He is an outsider himself, not allowing himself to be labelled – a former fighter in Chechnya, a loving father, a model for glossy magazines, a political activist. Where does he see himself as a highly sensitive writer in a world calling for subservience? A world in which Sasha and his activist friends are possibly the only ones who still dare to stand up to the all-pervasive authorities.   Патологии - Patologii The Pathologists Novel. Andreevsky Flag, Moscow 2005, 250 pages Egor Tashevsky is serving with a special unit in Chechnya. However, Egor is not prepared for this war. His psyche is fragile, his courage lacking, war is not part of his idea of normality. He finds that he is nothing more than curious when the first bodies lie before him, he catches himself fantasizing about deserting and about illness which would save him from this deployment, he has the hysterical desire to sing out loud or to rock in a cradle while he is waiting for the enemy; he finds himself on the edge of insanity. He is also madly in love with Dasha. A frenzied love which leads to acts of insanity on the part of the jealous Egor, as insane as the young hero's angry outrage against God, as insane as the gruesome episodes of war. While the flashbacks to a childhood as an orphan boy and the unhappy love for Dasha make a human being out of the soldier figure, the war episodes lead the novel to its conclusion like a heavy and unstoppable boulder rolling down a mountainside. This is not an ideological novel, it does not analyse the reasoning of the warmongers and wartime profiteers on either side. It is far more shocking, realistic and straightforward. Prilepin in an interview: "When I went to Chechnya for the first time in 1996, I was aggressive and confrontational – no, I didn't wish death upon all Chechens but I allowed myself to be taken in by imperial ideas. Now, almost ten years later, I am overcome by uncontrollable anger at all of those who are anti-Chechnya, the imperialists and the warmongers. It is a disgraceful, terrible and abysmal war. I have remained conservative, am still on the side of the state, but I consider myself sane and do not want my country sacrificing the lives of young people in the name of a minor but very protracted war which cannot be won."