Wound Av Oksana Vasyakina, Elina Alter

For fans of Maggie Nelson and Eileen Myles, the lyrical and deeply moving story of a young queer woman’s journey across Russia to inter her mother’s ashes and to understand her sexuality, femininity, and griefFrom one of Russia’s most exciting new voices, Wound follows a young lesbianpoet on a journey from Moscow to her hometown in Siberia, where she haspromised to bury her mother’s ashes. Woven throughout this fascinatingtravel narrative are harrowing and at times sublime memories of her childhoodand her sexual and artistic awakening. As she carefully documents her grief andinterrogatesher past, the narrator of Oksana Vasyakina’s autobiographical novelmeditates on queerness, death, and love and finds new words for understanding herrelationship with her mother, her country, her sexuality, and her identity as an artist.A sensual, whip-smart account of the complicated dynamics of queer life inpresent-day Siberia and Moscow, Wound is also in conversation with feministthinkersand artists, including Susan Sontag, Louise Bourgeois, and MoniqueWittig, locatingVasyakina’s work in a rich and exciting international literary tradition.