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Andrei Gelasimov studied foreign languages at Yakutsk State University and directing at the Moscow Theater Institute. He became an overnight literary sensation in Russia in 2001 when his story “A Tender Age,” which he published online, won critical acclaim as best debut and went on to garner the Apollon-Grigoriev and the Booker Student Prizes, as well as a nomination for the Belkin Prize. Thirst is Gelasimov’s first book published in English. His novel The Gods of the Steppes, forthcoming from AmazonCrossing in 2012, won the 2009 Russian National Bestseller literary award. Translator Marian Schwartz studied Russian and Russian literature at Harvard University, Middlebury Russian School, Leningrad State University, and the University of Texas at Austin. She is the recipient of two translation fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and a past president of the American Literary Translators Association. She translated the New York Times bestseller The Last Tsar by Edvard Radzinsky; two of her recent translations are Olga Slavnikova’s 2017 and Ivan Goncharov’s Oblomov.<p>“Gelasimov’s narrator stumbles through the rubble of a life unlived, its often-harsh language full of elegiac mourning. Gelasimov never wastes a word—<i>Thirst</i> brings forth an entirely new toughness, clarity, and elegance.” <b>—<i>Der Spiegel</i></b></p><p>“Each and every episode is very well executed, highly expressive, realistic and to the point.” <b>—<i>Beauty is a Sleeping Cat</i></b></p><p>“Andrei Gelasimov’s vivid, concise, penetrating stories are…full of the anguish, longing and pain of the world. Yet also pierced by hope and insight. And humanity.” <b>—<i>Russian Life</i></b></p>
Masterfully translated from the original Russian by award-winning translator Marian Schwartz, Thirst tells the story of 20-year-old Chechen War veteran Kostya. Maimed beyond recognition by a tank explosion, he spends weeks on end locked inside his apartment, his sole companions the vodka bottles spilling from the refrigerator. But soon Kostya’s comfortable if dysfunctional cocoon is torn open when he receives a visit from his army buddies who are mobilized to locate a missing comrade. Through this search for his missing friend, Kostya is able to find himself.