Constellation of Vital Phenomena

In the final days of 2004, in a small village in Chechnya, eight-year-old Hava hides in the forest when Russian military forces seize her father. Their neighbour, Ahmed, a failed doctor, smuggles her into the bombed-out hospital in the nearest town, where the only doctor, the Russian Sonia, treats a ceaseless stream of wounded rebels and refugees, whilst mourning her missing sister. Over the course of five dramatic days, Ahmed and Sonia each look back on their own pasts, seeking to unravel a mysterious puzzle of coincidences, betrayal and forgiveness that unexpectedly binds them together and determines their fate. Marra weaves a multifaceted human mosaic around the book’s six main characters, worthy of the most imposing and stirring 19th-century novelistic frescoes. ‘The book is imbued with and underpinned by a sense of renewal, optimism and redemption. It speaks of those things that survive within us, even when everything material outside us seems lost: of the love of a parent or a sister, the love that blossoms between two strangers, the sacrifices that every love demands. It is a novel about six beloved characters who have played an important role in my life, and whom I hope you will love too.” Anthony Marra A constellation of vital phenomena: Life – even at its most basic, microbial level – exists when six vital phenomena coincide: organisation, excitability, movement, growth, reproduction, adaptation… The book has also been honoured with the following awards: the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize, the 2015 Guggenheim Fellowship in Fiction, the Grand Prix des Lectrices de Elle 2015, the 2013 National Book Award Longlist, Whiting Writers’ Award for First-Time Fiction, Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, Barnes and Noble Fiction Discover Award.

Anthony Marra’s exquisitely written collection of short stories sketches a host of unforgettable characters whose lives intersect in heart-wrenching ways. In 1930s Leningrad, a painter-retoucher edits controversial photographs on behalf of Stalin’s Party, erasing and altering faces with his airbrush. Enchanted by the image of a ballerina, he finds himself accused of having links to Polish espionage. A group of women recount their own stories as well as those of their grandmothers, former Gulag prisoners, who settled in a mining town in Siberia. Two pairs of siblings share a fierce, protective love. Young men across the former Soviet Union face violence at home and in the camp. Great sacrifices are also made in the name of an oil-rich landscape, which is ordinary apart from the almost incomprehensible peaceful past it depicts. The Tsar of Love and Children, with stunning prose, speaks of the futility of attempting to erase people and events, of human adaptability, the absurdity of life and war, but also how small our lives are in relation to the vastness of the universe. [Listen](https://open.spotify.com/user/1227203063/playlist/6aRZRyzUVJUh492q9KkX4y) to the mixtape created by Anthony Marra to mark the publication of *The Tsar of Love and Children*. The playlist selected by the author perfectly captures the essence of the book and is ideal to listen to whilst reading it.

In the late 1920s, Maria Lagana and her mother arrived in the US as refugees from Mussolini’s fascist Italy. Years later, whilst American society is divided over whether or not the US should become involved in the European war, we find Maria as head producer at a ‘mid-sized’ Hollywood studio which, facing the threat of bankruptcy, is forced to collaborate with the government on the production of war propaganda films. And whilst Maria tries to secure her present and build her future amongst dozens of other European artists who have also sought a better life in the Land of (illusory) Professions, Hollywood, an unexpected arrival from her homeland forces her to come to terms with her past, re-examining her relationship with her parents, life and the world. A timeless story of love, illusions, guilt and sacrifice, set in the ‘golden’ post-war era of the world’s largest film industry. [Read what Achilleas Kyriakidis wrote on our blog about the translation of the book.](https://ikarosbooks.gr/blog/achilleas-kiriakidis-metafrazontas-to-mithistorima-i-mercury-parousiazi-tou-anthony-marra)