Multiple Personalities is a dreamlike novella by Tatyana Shcherbina, one of Russia’s most distinctive contemporary writers, translated into English by Melanie Moore. After years in a coma, a woman wakes determined to lead a normal life. Instead she finds herself slipping in and out of time, wandering through history in her imagination as if it were her back garden, while her friends live through the upheavals that have remade Russia over the past decades.
In Shcherbina’s hands, life is a masquerade whose guests are characters out of classic world literature, racing towards a destination unknown, and the notion that time flows neatly from past to future may be the strangest fiction of all.
“An intriguing novella that uses the idea of split personalities as a metaphor for not only life under the Soviets, but also for the confusion of contemporary life in post-Soviet Russia,” wrote Lisa Hill of ANZ LitLovers. “Slightly dreamy, and certainly convoluted, with several inspired episodes,” added M.A. Orthofer in the complete review. Shcherbina began by self-publishing her work to avoid Soviet censorship and is today one of Russia’s most celebrated female writers. A singular work of Russian literature in translation.
Author
Tatyana Shcherbina
Tatyana Shcherbina is known in Russia for her poetry and prose, as well as numerous essays and translations from French. Her early works had been self-published in the USSR to avoid censorship, and it was only in the new Russia that she gained public recognition. She recieved various literary awards and is considered one of Russia's most celebrated female writers.
Endorsements and Review Quotes
“The whole of the book can’t be summarized any more than the women, or woman, at the heart of the novel cannot be summarized; but the collection of dialogues, visions, and moments of everyday life in the last half-century of history in Russia can be experienced without mastery of that history. The novel reads like riding along on an unexpected road trip that lets off too suddenly—leaving you to ponder the fragmented memories that remain.” Jonah Sutton-Morse, Strange Horizons
“Multiple Personalities is an intriguing novella that uses the idea of ‘split personalities’ as a metaphor for not only life under the Soviets, but also for the confusion of contemporary life in post-Soviet Russia.” Lisa Hill, ANZ LitLovers LitBlog
“Slightly dreamy, and certainly convoluted, Multiple Personalities is an intriguing take on modern Russia and the individual in it, with several inspired episodes (including both the opening and the final two chapters).” M.A.Orthofer, the complete review
