Disappearing Earth was inspired by Russia and written in America. My thanks go to Alizah Salario, Claire Dunnington, Boo Trundle, Brittany K. Allen, Leigh Stein, Alison B. Hart, Mira Jacob and the Resistance, Jennie Baird, Mika Yamamoto, and Lena Tsykynovska for reading and believing in this novel. The space and support to write it came from Brooklyn’s PowderKeg workspace, Chinelo Okparanta and the Tin House Summer Workshop, Christine Schutt and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Dionne Brand and the Banff Centre, VCCA, Hambidge, Ragdale, and Yaddo.
Thanks to Jean Kwok for being a guardian angel. Suzanne Gluck, Tracy Fisher, Andrea Blatt, and the whole WME team have given me the happiest moments of my whole life. Rowan Cope and Jo Dickinson at Scribner UK nurtured this book’s growth from across the Atlantic—I am so thankful. At Knopf, Annie Bishai, Lydia Buechler, Pei Loi Koay, Josie Kals, Kathy Zuckerman, Sara Eagle, Rachel Fershleiser, Paul Bogaards, Nicholas Latimer, and Chris Gillespie guided me through every step of the publishing process and made my dreams come true. And enormous thanks go to my brilliant, kind, unfailingly patient editor, Robin Desser. There aren’t words in English or Russian that can express what she has meant to this book and to me.
So many people helped bring Disappearing Earth to life. I will never be able to thank them all sufficiently. Let me then dedicate this last line of gratitude to the most important one: to Alex Eleftherakis, for his love, his faith, and his suggestion ten years ago to consider Kamchatka.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Julia Phillips is a Fulbright Fellow whose writing has appeared in Glimmer Train, The Atlantic, Slate, and The Moscow Times. She lives in Brooklyn.
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Copyright
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Copyright © 2019 by Julia K. B. Phillips, Inc.
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Alfred A. Knopf Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Several chapters in this novel were originally published, in different form, in the following publications: “August” first appeared as “Disappearing Earth” in Confrontation Magazine (Fall 2016); “September” first appeared as “Anya” in The Toast (January 2016); “November” first appeared as “Valentina” in Vol. 1 Brooklyn (May 2015); “February” first appeared as “Galya” in The Antioch Review (Winter 2016); “March” first appeared as “Nadia” in Glimmer Train (May 2016); “April” first appeared as “Nina” in The Brooklyn Quarterly (Fall 2015); and “May” first appeared as “Lera” in The Rumpus (August 2015).
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: Phillips, Julia, author.
Title: Disappearing Earth : a novel / by Julia Phillips.
Description: First edition. | New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2019.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018030958 (print) | LCCN 2018032011 (ebook) | ISBN 9780525520412 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780525520429 (ebook) | ISBN 9780525520429 (open market)
Classification: LCC PS3616.H4585 (ebook) | LCC PS3616.H4585 D57 2019 (print) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018030958
Ebook ISBN 9780525520429
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Map on this page by Jeffrey L. Ward
Cover images: Kamchatka Peninsula at sunrise, Russia, by Ignacio Palacios / Lonely Planet / Getty Images; (figures) Michael Ormerod / Millennium Images, UK
Cover design by Janet Hansen
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