Little Foxes Took Up Matches
by Katya Kazbek
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Pub Date Apr 05 2022 | Archive Date Mar 31 2022
Tin House | Tin House Books
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Description
“Sometimes in the face of perversity, neglect, and growing up in a rundown Moscow flat one-bedroom too small, one needs to do their own myth-making. And in this unflinching, yet achingly humorous look at millennial Russia, Katya Kazbek celebrates a wonderfully heroic self-deification. Proving we can become the gods and goddesses this world truly needs.” — Paul Beatty
An arresting coming of age, an exploration of gender, a modern folktale, a powerful portrait of a family—Katya Kazbek breaks out as a new voice to watch.
When Mitya was two years old, he swallowed his grandmother’s sewing needle. For his family, it marks the beginning of the end, the promise of certain death. For Mitya, it is a small, metal treasure that guides him from within. As he grows, his life mirrors the uncertain future of his country, which is attempting to rebuild itself after the collapse of the Soviet Union, torn between its past and the promise of modern freedom. Mitya finds himself facing a different sort of ambiguity: is he a boy, as everyone keeps telling him, or is he not quite a boy, as he often feels?
After suffering horrific abuse from his cousin Vovka who has returned broken from war, Mitya embarks on a journey across underground Moscow to find something better, a place to belong. His experiences are interlaced with a retelling of a foundational Russian fairytale, Koschei the Deathless, offering an element of fantasy to the brutal realities of Mitya’s everyday life.
Told with deep empathy, humor, and a bit of surreality, Little Foxes Took Up Matches is a revelation about the life of one community in a country of turmoil and upheaval, glimpsed through the eyes of a precocious and empathetic child, whose heart and mind understand that there are often more than two choices. An arresting coming of age, an exploration of gender, a modern folktale, a comedy about family, Katya Kazbek breaks out as a new voice to watch.
About the Author: Katya Kazbek is a bilingual Russian/English writer, translator, and editor who cofounded the online magazine Supamodu.
Advance Praise
"Many have tried and failed to summon the magic Katya Kazbek wields here as matter of factly as a switchblade. A relief, really, to read a debut novel as original as this—as cunning, wild and free." - Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
"Katya Kazbek’s first novel is a book borne out of her experience of living in a world in which nothing is fixed but struggle, humor, and the unreality to be found in the reality of everyday life. Told with precision, empathy, and a non-jaundiced eye for the absurdity inherent in being different in a world that doesn’t necessarily cherish it, Little Foxes Took Up Matches, is an auspicious debut, eminently cherishable." - Hilton Als
"An unpredictable love story that is mesmeric, totally original, and deeply, deeply touching, Little Foxes Took Up Matches examines our competing human instincts to belong and to escape. Kazbek has reinvented—and bewitched—the coming-of-age genre, and I can’t wait to succumb to whatever magic she writes next." - Courtney Maum, author of Costalegre
"Katya Kazbek's Little Foxes Took Up Matches is a stunning and transformative novel that shows us the playful possibility and subversive quality of queer myth-making. With humor, heart, and expansiveness, Kazbek forges a new language to belong inside and reinvents storytelling. This book will swallow you and shelter you. It's pure magic and will rearrange you from the inside-out." - K-Ming Chang, author of Bestiary
"A luscious modern queer fable drawn in post-Soviet Russian red lipstick. Kazbek’s dreamy family of misfits forged in the feminine occult will stay with you forever. Brava!" - Sophia Shalmiyev, author of Mother Winter
"A Russian satire, a queer myth, an enchanting coming of age story—Little Foxes Took Up Matches is one of the most original, and charming, debuts I've read in some time. Katya Kazbek writes with wit, heart, and the needle-prick of life." - David Ebershoff, author of The Danish Girl and The 19th Wife
"Absorbing and unremittingly honest, Little Foxes Took Up Matches is a magnificent journey with a thunderous effect that both injures and mends. Kazbek writes this fascinating story with eloquence, human understanding and compassion. She illuminates post-soviet Russia’s contradictions in prose as undeflected and fearless as the contradictions themselves are piercing and violent. It’s nothing short of exceptional that anyone can write original, brilliant, and witty prose in a language not their own; we marvel at a Vladimir Nabokov, a Joseph Conrad, a Jhumpa Lahiri, a Katya Kazbek." - James Canón, author of Tales from the Town of Widows
"I am in love! Little Foxes Took Up Matches is an utterly spectacular modern myth. This rapturous coming-of-age, equal parts wit and grit, weaves a spellbinding tale about having the courage to incite a revolution in oneself. With this debut Katya Kazbek proves she is an absolute legend in her own right." - Afia Atakora, author of Conjure Women
Available Editions
| EDITION | Hardcover |
| ISBN | 9781953534026 |
| PRICE | $26.95 (USD) |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Sharon U, Bookseller
Multi-layered and absorbing, this tender, yet disturbing coming-of-age novel is a look into contemporary Russia, emerging gender identification, friendship and family. Part brilliant fable and part mystery, I consumed this wonderful novel in just a few sittings. My guess is this novel will find a wide audience with readers on the cutting edge of new literary fiction.
My thanks to Net Galley for the ARC.
Rachel D, Reviewer
Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC of this book. This was a wonderful story. Heartbreaking definitely, at times. Very unique. I will definitely be looking for more from this author. Kochei is one of my all time favorite legends.
Michaela S, Reviewer
Little Foxes Took Up Matches by Katya Kazbek. Thanks to Tin House @tin_house and NetGalley @netgalley for letting me read a digital ARC of this book.
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If you (like me) loved Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart or The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi, you will want to pick up Katya Kazbek's debut Little Foxes Took Up Matches.
Sophia Shalmiyev in her blurb perfectly described the novel as "A luscious modern queer fable drawn in post-Soviet Russian red lipstick."
Mixed in with a fairytale retelling, Little Foxes is the coming of age story of Mitya, a boy in post-Soviet Russia. Mitya is precocious and charming, but living in very difficult circumstances in a rundown Moscow apartment (trigger warning for sexual abuse) and struggling against strict gender conventions. Kazbek writes with compassion, honesty, contradiction and a bit of surrealism.
I found this book so compulsively readable that I could hardly put it down.
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