Quotes
“A Dantean descent…In a steely translation by Antonina W. Bouis, Oblivion is as cold and stark as a glacial crevasse, but as beautiful as one, too, with a clear poetic sensibility built to stand against the forces of erasure.” Wall Street Journal
“Sergei Lebedev opens up new territory in literature. Lebedev’s prose lives from the precise images and the author’s colossal gift of observation.” Der Speigel
“The beauty of the language is almost impossible to bear.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Frankfurt)
“A monomaniacal meditation on memory and forgetting…Lebedev’s magnificent novel has the potency to become a mirror and a wake-up call to a Russia that is blind to history.” Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Zurich)
“Opening in stately fashion and unfolding ever faster with fierce, intensive elegance, this first novel discloses the weight of Soviet history and its consequences…The language is precise yet lyrical, with much revealed through dreams, as if the Soviet reality were otherwise too awful to touch. Verdict: Highly recommended for anyone serious about literature or history.” Library Journal (starred review)
“By placing us in inhumanity’s long, shiver-inducing shadow and opening a fresh window on the state’s efforts to wipe the gulag era from history, Lebedev takes his place beside Solzhenitsyn and other great writers who have refused to abide by silence. Lebedev’s courageous and devastating first novel…applies modern insight and poetic force to atrocities past and to his country’s unspoken campaign to remove them from history.” Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“The determination of Kulak laborers, the desperation of a fugitive prisoner, the desolation of an empty library, the tragedy of a boy and his whistle, are among the many images capturing the impoverished state of the land, the people, and the national spirit, left by an unjust and undeniable part of Russian history.” Publishers Weekly
“An important book about where Russia is today, with poetic descriptions and unforgettable images evoking that nation’s often elusive attempts to understand its dark past. I stand in awe of both the author and translator.” Jack F. Matlock Jr., former US ambassador to the Soviet Union
“An extraordinary book that takes readers across Russia’s desolate northern landscape and turns up secrets about the terrible legacy of the Soviet gulags, described through evocative, often poetic portraits of people and places.” Celestine Bohlen, International New York Times columnist and former Moscow correspondent for the New York Times
“Extraordinarily intense and beautifully written…Oblivion haunts this novel. By writing it, Lebedev has given the past a present and a presence.” Judy Dempsey, senior associate at Carnegie Europe and editor-in-chief of Strategic Europe
