Istemi - Couverture souple

Nikitin, Alexei

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0720614643 ISBN 13 : 9780720614640

Editeur : Peter Owen Publishers, 2013

Synopsis

The eponymous hero, part of a brood of bored science students, helps concoct a strategy game set in different eras where each 'ruler' of his territory competes in Orwellian permanent war. But the KGB uncovers highly plausible – and suspicious – military plans and a long penance for each 'combatant' ensues. All too late, Istemi is the first to realize the mysterious and disturbingly prophetic nature of a seemingly innocent invention. He is powerless as events long foretold for each unfold, including a hellish tour of duty in Afghanistan, incarceration in an asylum and mindless bureaucratic drudgery – but what fate awaits Istemi as communist absurdist reality turns into post-capitalism nightmare?

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

As the USSR enters its final decade, a group of bored science students in Kiev devise a strategy game in which each ruler competes in Orwellian permanent war. Alerted by whom? to the subversive nature and Ukrainian nationalism inherent in the game, the KGB becomes suspicious and pulls them all in for questioning. Though eventually released, they are now marked men whose lives are overrun by wider events resulting variously in a hellish tour of duty in Afghanistan, incarceration in an asylum and mindless bureaucratic drudgery. As Ukraine negotiates the post-Soviet capitalist free-for-all twenty years later, one of the group, Davidov, aka Istemi, receives an email with a familiar ultimatum attached . . . Brilliantly revealing how a seemingly innocent pursuit can have unforeseen and far-reaching effects, Istemi is a wildly inventive novel exploring the curious banality deep in the heart of a paranoid totalitarian state.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Peter Owen Publishers
• Date d'édition: 2013
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0720614643
• ISBN 13: 9780720614640
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 180
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible