As they conduct their international business transactions, Sadulaev’s characters resort to the universal language of trade—English. Maximus’s dreams occasionally leave traces of the ancient Khazar language in his consciousness as well; the reader—like the translator—is unlikely to be able to decipher them, though readers proficient in Arabic may fare better. Russian novels have always been hospitable to heterogeneous intrusions, and The Maya Pill is no exception. Here can be found various interpolated histories: of the post-Soviet economy, of Khazaria, of the mythical origins of Rus. A dip into the chaos of the Internet yields a series of posts by a barely literate blogger that, for all their misspellings and crude vocabulary, do manage to lead Maximus to the secret of the fish paste, and from there, to the true nature of the pink pills.
The Maya Pill, like its hallowed literary predecessors, offers a panoramic picture of the contemporary social and economic world even as it probes deep into our assumptions about the nature of reality. True to the novel’s ambitions, the eternal “accursed” questions of Russian literature lurk quietly on every page. Here, though, they come with an understated irony that should endear itself to a modern readership that has heard and read it all before, or thinks it has.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
GERMAN SADULAEV was born in 1973, in the town of Shali, in the Chechen-Ingush ASSR, to a Chechen father and Terek Cossack mother. In 1989, aged sixteen, he left Chechnya to study law at Leningrad State University. Today he lives and works as a lawyer in St. Petersburg.
CAROL APOLLONIO is Professor of the Practice of Russian at Duke University. She is the author of Dostoevsky’s Secrets: Reading Against the Grain, and is a translator of Russian and Japanese literature.
SELECTED DALKEY ARCHIVE TITLES
MICHAL AJVAZ, The Golden Age.
The Other City.
PIERRE ALBERT-BIROT, Grabinoulor.
YUZ ALESHKOVSKY, Kangaroo.
FELIPE ALFAU, Chromos.
Locos.
IVAN ÂNGELO, The Celebration.
The Tower of Glass.
ANTÓNIO LOBO ANTUNES, Knowledge of Hell.
The Splendor of Portugal.
ALAIN ARIAS-MISSON, Theatre of Incest.
JOHN ASHBERY AND JAMES SCHUYLER, A Nest of Ninnies.
ROBERT ASHLEY, Perfect Lives.
GABRIELA AVIGUR-ROTEM, Heatwave and Crazy Birds.
DJUNA BARNES, Ladies Almanack.
Ryder.
JOHN BARTH, LETTERS.
Sabbatical.
DONALD BARTHELME, The King.
Paradise.
SVETISLAV BASARA, Chinese Letter.
MIQUEL BAUÇÀ, The Siege in the Room.
RENÉ BELLETTO, Dying.
MAREK BIEŃCZYK, Transparency.
ANDREI BITOV, Pushkin House.
ANDREJ BLATNIK, You Do Understand.
LOUIS PAUL BOON, Chapel Road.
My Little War.
Summer in Termuren.
ROGER BOYLAN, Killoyle.
IGNÁCIO DE LOYOLA BRANDÃO, Anonymous Celebrity.
Zero.
BONNIE BREMSER, Troia: Mexican Memoirs.
CHRISTINE BROOKE-ROSE, Amalgamemnon.
BRIGID BROPHY, In Transit.
GERALD L. BRUNS, Modern Poetry and the Idea of Language.
GABRIELLE BURTON, Heartbreak Hotel.
MICHEL BUTOR, Degrees.
Mobile.
G. CABRERA INFANTE, Infante’s Inferno.
Three Trapped Tigers.
JULIETA CAMPOS,
The Fear of Losing Eurydice.
ANNE CARSON, Eros the Bittersweet.
ORLY CASTEL-BLOOM, Dolly City.
LOUIS-FERDINAND CÉLINE, Castle to Castle.
Conversations with Professor Y.
London Bridge.
Normance.
North.
Rigadoon.
MARIE CHAIX, The Laurels of Lake Constance.
HUGO CHARTERIS, The Tide Is Right.
ERIC CHEVILLARD, Demolishing Nisard.
MARC CHOLODENKO, Mordechai Schamz.
JOSHUA COHEN, Witz.
EMILY HOLMES COLEMAN, The Shutter of Snow.
ROBERT COOVER, A Night at the Movies.
STANLEY CRAWFORD, Log of the S.S. The Mrs Unguentine.
Some Instructions to My Wife.
RENÉ CREVEL, Putting My Foot in It.
RALPH CUSACK, Cadenza.
NICHOLAS DELBANCO, The Count of Concord.
Sherbrookes.
NIGEL DENNIS, Cards of Identity.
PETER DIMOCK, A Short Rhetoric for Leaving the Family.
ARIEL DORFMAN, Konfidenz.
COLEMAN DOWELL, Island People.
Too Much Flesh and Jabez.
ARKADII DRAGOMOSHCHENKO, Dust.
RIKKI DUCORNET, The Complete Butcher’s Tales.
The Fountains of Neptune.
The Jade Cabinet.
Phosphor in Dreamland.
WILLIAM EASTLAKE, The Bamboo Bed.
Castle Keep.
Lyric of the Circle Heart.
JEAN ECHENOZ, Chopin’s Move.
STANLEY ELKIN, A Bad Man.
Criers and Kibitzers, Kibitzers and Criers.
The Dick Gibson Show.
The Franchiser.
The Living End.
Mrs. Ted Bliss.
FRANÇOIS EMMANUEL, Invitation to a Voyage.
SALVADOR ESPRIU, Ariadne in the Grotesque Labyrinth.
LESLIE A. FIEDLER, Love and Death in the American Novel.
JUAN FILLOY, Op Oloop.