Just the Plague

Ludmila Ulitskaya may well be my favourite contemporary Russian writer. Just the Plague is powerful in its literary construction and moral clarity, not to mention its contemporary parallels – Gary ShteyngartA voice of moral authority for differently minded Russians, and one of Russia’s most famous writers – Masha GessenA great Russian novelist * Le Monde *One of the greatest living Russian writers – Gary ShteyngartUlitskaya captures the shape-shifting nature of epidemics, and the way they acquire meaning backwards… the questions the book raises about authoritarianism and contagion-control remain bitingly relevant * Economist *Unsettling… Ulitskaya’s language is as stark as the situations she describes, but she adds colour to an otherwise monochrome palate with outlandish, almost farcical vignettes… This English translation of Just the Plague is […] to be welcomed for bringing a courageous Russian author and her humanitarian concerns to a wider audience * Lunate *Just the Plague serves as both a time capsule from a world where the possibility of a global pandemic was the stuff of fiction, and a sprightly parable concerning the infectiousness of ideology and dogma * New Internationalist *Ulitskaya has a vivid cinematic imagination… [a] masterly balance of the ominous and absurd * TLS *

Born in 1943 in the Urals, Ludmila Ulitskaya is one of Russia’s most accomplished and far-reaching contemporary writers. She is the author of numerous plays, stories and novels, and her work has won or been nominated for many prestigious international literary awards, including the Man Booker International and the Prix Medicis Etranger.