“An unpredictable love story that is mesmeric, totally original, and deeply, deeply touching, Little Foxes Took Up Matches examines our competing human instincts to belong and to escape. A relief, really, to read a debut novel as original as this-as cunning, wild and free.” -Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel “Many have tried and failed to summon the magic Katya Kazbek wields here as matter of factly as a switchblade. Every page sparks with energy in this ambitious and original debut.” -BuzzFeed Kazbek writes with a kind of urgency that makes her novel a true standout. “A coming of age story that is at times chilling and in equal moments heartfelt, and at the center of it, Mitya is simply trying to find his own way. As dark as a Brothers Grimm fairy tale-and as magical.” -Kirkus, s tarred review “A rich and moving look at a child in the midst of self-discovery. Proving we can become the gods and goddesses this world truly needs.” -Paul Beatty And in this unflinching, yet achingly humorous look at millennial Russia, Katya Kazbek celebrates a wonderfully heroic self-deification. “Sometimes in the face of perversity, neglect, and growing up in a rundown Moscow flat one-bedroom too small, one needs to do their own myth-making. less …Ī Most Anticipated Book of the Year at The Rumpus An arresting coming of age, an exploration of gender, a modern folktale, a comedy about family―Katya Kazbeck breaks out as a new voice to watch. Told with deep empathy, humor, and a bit of surreality, Little Foxes Took Up Matches is a revelation about the life of one community in a country of turmoil and upheaval, glimpsed through the eyes of a precocious and empathetic child, whose heart and mind understand that there are often more than two choices. His experiences are interlaced with a retelling of a foundational Russian fairytale, Koschei the Deathless, offering an element of fantasy to the brutal realities of Mitya’s everyday life.
Mitya finds himself facing a different sort of ambiguity: is he a boy, as everyone keeps telling him, or is he not quite a boy, as he often feels?Īfter suffering horrific abuse from his cousin Vovka who has returned broken from war, Mitya embarks on a journey across underground Moscow to find something better, a place to belong. As he grows, his life mirrors the uncertain future of his country, which is attempting to rebuild itself after the collapse of the Soviet Union, torn between its past and the promise of modern freedom.
For Mitya, it is a small, metal treasure that guides him from within.
For his family, it marks the beginning of the end, the promise of certain death. When Mitya was two years old, he swallowed his grandmother’s sewing needle. A powerful story of sexual awakening and acceptance voiced by an unforgettable protagonist coming of age in post-Soviet Russia.
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