Vita Nostra
A Novel
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
“Vita Nostra” — a cross between Lev Grossman’s “The Magicians” and Elizabeth Kostova’s “The Historian” [...] is the anti-Harry Potter you didn’t know you wanted.” -- The Washington Post
“Vita Nostra has become a powerful influence on my own writing. It’s a book that has the potential to become a modern classic of its genre, and I couldn’t be more excited to see it get the global audience in English it so richly deserves.” -- Lev Grossman
Best Books of November 2018 -- Paste Magazine
The definitive English language translation of the internationally acclaimed Russian novel—a brilliant dark fantasy combining psychological suspense, enchantment, and terror that makes us consider human existence in a fresh and provocative way.
Our life is brief . . .
Sasha Samokhina has been accepted to the Institute of Special Technologies.
Or, more precisely, she’s been chosen.
Situated in a tiny village, she finds the students are bizarre, and the curriculum even more so. The books are impossible to read, the lessons obscure to the point of maddening, and the work refuses memorization. Using terror and coercion to keep the students in line, the school does not punish them for their transgressions and failures; instead, it is their families that pay a terrible price. Yet despite her fear, Sasha undergoes changes that defy the dictates of matter and time; experiences which are nothing she has ever dreamed of . . . and suddenly all she could ever want.
A complex blend of adventure, magic, science, and philosophy that probes the mysteries of existence, filtered through a distinct Russian sensibility, this astonishing work of speculative fiction—brilliantly translated by Julia Meitov Hersey—is reminiscent of modern classics such as Lev Grossman’s The Magicians, Max Barry’s Lexicon, and Katherine Arden’s The Bear and the Nightingale, but will transport them to a place far beyond those fantastical worlds.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Imagine if the Harry Potter books were as moody as a gothic horror novel and as unsettling as a Franz Kafka story. Now you’ve got an idea what to expect from this dark, entertaining Ukrainian fantasy. Vita Nostra starts with teenager Sasha meeting a mysterious man in dark sunglasses who, over the course of a summer, convinces her to attend the Institute of Special Technologies—which is sort of like Hogwarts, but with 5000% more brain-breaking philosophy and metaphysical intrigue. The matter-of-fact surrealism of Sergey and Marina Dyachenko’s novel is intriguing even before it plunges into a creepy and gripping kind of magic realism. (How many heroines can vomit up gold coins or reverse time?) We loved getting sucked into Sasha’s bizarre new school as she uncovers powers she can barely describe and learns truths she can scarcely fathom. Amazingly weird, Vita Nostra is as impossible to categorize as it is to put down.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The Dyachenkos' 2007 novel takes the trope of young people selected for a school for magic and transforms it into an unnerving, deeply philosophical coming-of-age tale. A mysterious man asks 16-year-old Sasha Samokhina to perform a series of bizarre, potentially humiliating tasks that lead to her admission to the enigmatic Institute of Special Technologies. There, students are confronted with unreadable texts and demanding professors, and their obedience is enforced by threats of harm to their families. Sasha excels at the mind-bending, body-transforming "special technologies"; her prodigious talent links her to the hidden mechanics of time, space, and reality itself. But there are no comforting elements of wish-fulfillment in this school story. Her ordeals are frequently harrowing, and all too often she seems nearly powerless in the face of forces that are manipulating and shaping her into something beyond mere humanity. She is nevertheless a sympathetic heroine, and readers will gladly follow her fascinating, disturbing story to its transcendent conclusion. Hersey's translation is plain and straightforward, a wise choice that enhances the deep strangeness of this trippy, vivid novel.
Customer Reviews
vita . . . Amazing!
Extraordinary! A truly remarkable read! You will never miss the hours you give up to read this wonderful book, and you will carry it with you in your heart and your head thereafter.
Fun
I dunno what happened but was very fun. It wasn’t abstract nonsense it all made sense kinda
The ending was pointless
The book completely dissolves into abstract nonsense, to the point where you’ll be wondering why you even read it in the first place or why anything happened at all.