About this ebook
Sergei Lebedev’s first two novels, The Year of the Comet and Oblivion, established him as one of Russia’s most important contemporary novelists. Now he reaffirms that status with this third work of fiction. The Goose Fritz tells the story of a young Russian named Kirill, the sole survivor of a once numerous clan of German origin, who delves relentlessly into the unresolved past.
When Krill’s ancestor, Balthasar Schwerdt, migrated to the Russian Empire in the early 1800s, he brought with him the practice of alternative medicine. He was then taken captive by an erratic nobleman who supplied entertainment to Catherine the Great in the form of dwarves, hunchbacks, and magicians. S earches archives and cemeteries across Europe, Kirill’s investigation takes us through centuries of turmoil during which none of Schwert’s descendants can escape their adoptive country’s cruel fate.
Illuminating both personal and political history, “Lebedev muses in Tolstoyan fashion about [how] the actions of distant ancestors can fix the destinies of people hundreds of years later" (The Wall Street Journal).About the author
Antonina W. Bouis, who translated all three of Sergei Lebedev’s novels, is one of the leading translators of Russian literature working today. She has translated over 80 works from authors such as Evgeny Yevtushenko, Mikhail Bulgakov, Andrei Sakharov, Sergei Dovlatov and Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. Bouis, previously executive director of the Soros Foundation in the former USSR, now lives in New York City.
