Incredible Incidents in Women’s Cell No. 3

I’m very, very happy. Happy for everyone who loves to read (and those are the best people) — we have a wonderful new book. I’m happy for Kira Yarmysh; I’m sure this book will be a success for her, and not her only one, but the first of many. And, I won’t hide it, I’m happy for myself too — it’s wonderful when the people you work with grow, succeed, and show their talents in new areas.

And I’m incredibly proud that I persuaded Kira to write this book.

After returning from yet another arrest, Kira would tell the life stories of her cellmates in a fascinating way. It was genuinely frustrating that no one except me and a couple of other people in the office would ever hear those stories. So I told her: you have to write a book.

I had no doubt that Kira would write well. First, I know how she writes. Second, she’s a book lover herself and one of the most well-read people I’ve ever met. Third, a few years ago, in some conversation, she said that one of her biggest ambitions was to write a book. And if a person thinks about that, they’re almost already a writer. They just need a little push.

I read it chapter by chapter, and I loved it. This is not a book about prison, but about Russia, life, and women — though even the various prison details of the special detention center (a short-term detention facility), which are familiar to me, are described with a precision and brilliance that only a truly talented person could achieve. Maybe, of course, I’m a little overly enthusiastic because I work with Kira and have a special reverence for people who write “real books,” but Boris Akunin and Dmitry Bykov too — giants of contemporary Russian literature who have read *Incredible Incidents* — also praised the book.

So I think you’ll all like it too. Buy it, read it, and leave reviews.

The book’s page on the Corpus website: https://www.corpus.ru/products/kira-yarmysh-neveroyatnye-proisshestviya-v-zhenskoj-kamere-3.htm

Right now, the book can be bought online from Labirint and Book24; offline, it is already available at the Moskva bookstore, and it should appear in other stores over the next couple of days as well.

An audiobook, narrated by Kira herself, will be released soon.