Little Foxes Took Up Matches by Katya Kazbek

She illuminates post-soviet Russia's contradictions in prose as undeflected and fearless as the contradictions themselves are piercing and violent. Kazbek writes this fascinating story with eloquence, human understanding and compassion.

'Absorbing and unremittingly honest, Little Foxes Took Up Matches is a magnificent journey with a thunderous effect that both injures and mends. 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. With this debut Katya Kazbek proves she is an absolute legend in her own right.' - Afia Atakora This rapturous coming-of-age, equal parts wit and grit, weaves a spellbinding tale about having the courage to incite a revolution in oneself.

'I am in love! Little Foxes Took Up Matches is an utterly spectacular modern myth. An arresting coming of age, an exploration of gender, a modern folktale, a comedy about family, Katya Kazbek 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? After 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. proving we can become the gods and goddesses this world truly needs.” -Paul Beatty An arresting coming of age, an exploration of gender, a modern folktale, a powerful portrait of a family-Katya Kazbek breaks out as a new voice to watch. A VOGUE Best Book of 2022 So Far, a NYLON, Chicago Review of Books, and Kirkus Best Book of April, and a Rumpus Most Anticipated Book of the Year “Unflinching, yet achingly humorous.

Little Foxes Took Up Matches by Katya Kazbek