by Katya Kazbek
Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Apr 2022
350 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
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.
"The novel's subject matter is weighty—Mitya survives sexual abuse, experiences transphobic violence, and struggles to come to terms with systemic inequality and corruption while seeking justice for a murdered homeless man—but Kazbek's incisive prose and Mitya's enduring compassion keep this debut novel from feeling maudlin or exploitative. A rich and moving look at a child in the midst of self-discovery. As dark as a Brothers Grimm fairy tale—and as magical." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Kazbek debuts with a lovely bildungsroman set during and after the downfall of the U.S.S.R...Kazbek's clever juxtaposition of Koschei's tale with Mitya's amid the upheaval in Moscow makes this an ingenious coming-of-age story where a queer boy finds comfort and hope. Readers will be enchanted." - Publishers Weekly
"A coming of age story that is at times chilling and in equal moments heartfelt, and at the center of it, Mitya is simply trying to find his own way. Kazbek writes with a kind of urgency that makes her novel a true standout. Every page sparks with energy in this ambitious and original debut." - BuzzFeed
"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
"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
"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
This information about Little Foxes Took Up Matches was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Katya Kazbek is a bilingual Russian/English writer, translator, and editor who cofounded the online magazine Supamodu. A graduate of Parsons and Oxford's writing program, Kazbek received her MFA from Columbia University. She lives between New York, New York, and Moscow, Russia.
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