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A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
and The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra · 2014 · 416 pages
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • A searing debut about the transcendent power of love in wartime, hailed as “an absolute masterpiece” (Sarah Jessica Parker, Entertainment Weekly)—from the renowned author of Mercury Pictures Presents
“Extraordinary . . . a twenty-first century War and Peace.”—The New York Times Book Review
NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE JOHN LEONARD AWARD WINNER • ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal
In the final days of December 2004, in a small rural village in Chechnya, eight-year-old Havaa hides in the woods when her father is abducted by Russian forces. Fearing for her life, she flees with their neighbor Akhmed—a failed physician—to the bombed-out hospital, where Sonja, the one remaining doctor, treats a steady stream of wounded rebels and refugees and mourns her missing sister. Over the course of five dramatic days, Akhmed and Sonja reach back into their pasts to unravel the intricate mystery of coincidence, betrayal, and forgiveness that unexpectedly binds them and decides their fate.
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, Chicago Tribune, NPR, Kansas City Star, San Francisco Chronicle, The Christian Science Monitor, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Kirkus Reviews
“Extraordinary . . . a twenty-first century War and Peace.”—The New York Times Book Review
NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE JOHN LEONARD AWARD WINNER • ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal
In the final days of December 2004, in a small rural village in Chechnya, eight-year-old Havaa hides in the woods when her father is abducted by Russian forces. Fearing for her life, she flees with their neighbor Akhmed—a failed physician—to the bombed-out hospital, where Sonja, the one remaining doctor, treats a steady stream of wounded rebels and refugees and mourns her missing sister. Over the course of five dramatic days, Akhmed and Sonja reach back into their pasts to unravel the intricate mystery of coincidence, betrayal, and forgiveness that unexpectedly binds them and decides their fate.
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, Chicago Tribune, NPR, Kansas City Star, San Francisco Chronicle, The Christian Science Monitor, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Kirkus Reviews
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Joyce Carol Oates
“In a politically fractious America in which “bearing witness” has been attacked as a motive for art in recent years, emerging writers have nonetheless written boldly across divides of class, ethnic identity, and gender. Outstanding among these has been Anthony Marra, a young American author whose first two books are set mainly in Russia and the former Soviet Union. In A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, Marra’s debut novel, three survivors of the Second Chechen War band together in an abandoned hospital. In 2015’s The Tsar of Love and Techno, linked short stories follow various characters’ dreams and dashed hopes from the 1930s to the present, and then beyond.”↗
