Oleh Poliakov
(Олег Поляков)
Oleh is a native of Eastern Ukraine who, despite dabbling in writing in his youth, did not begin to pursue a career as an author until 2011. He holds a degree in journalism from Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv, and spent almost twenty years working as an editor and journalist for various organizations. Oleh is the author of two novels, the first of which, Mrs. Vekla’s Slaves and Friends, was hailed by Ukrainian critics as the best Ukrainian literary debut of 2015. His second novel, The Chronicles of Foggy Troy, was a finalist for the Kovaliv Fund Award (USA). Oleh is currently working on a third novel tied loosely to events surrounding Ukraine’s 2014 Revolution of Dignity, or Euromaidan.
Born 1971 in Pavlohrad, Ukraine.
Currently resides in Kyiv, Ukraine.
The Chronicles of Foggy Troy
In the densely populated Kyiv commuter neighborhood of Troieshchyna, or Troy, the mundane and workaday lives of inhabitants are taken for a surreal spin when an old woman and her two tenants are found dead in their shared apartment. The third tenant—the elusive and slightly odd, provincial Mavra—has disappeared, but the detective assigned to the case finds a small album containing photos of corpses under her mattress. The plot that unfolds—part detective story, part surreal fantasy, part folk legend and mythology—takes the reader on a chimerical voyage through the underbelly of present-day Kyiv, through the depressed Ukraine of the 1980s, and to a potentially fictionalized Australia. Unsolved murder, unconcluded musings, and unresolved characters deliberately blur the line between the real and the subjective in this engaging, bizarre, and humor-filled book. A novel about Fate in the broadest possible sense of the word, about the inevitability of the most improbable events, and about the utterly strange lurking around every corner, The Chronicles of Foggy Troy challenges how we, as humans, make our individual peace with the unknown and the unknowable.
Translation sample available upon request.
Key words: popular fiction, detective, fantasy, slipstream, legend, murder, Kyiv, fate
Original publication: «Хроніки туманної Трої», KM Books, 2016
Anticipated word count: 92,000
English rights holder: Author
