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Translated from Russian, this star-crossed gay romance is a #1 bestselling TikTok sensation that took readers by storm, made international news, and catalyzed one of Russia’s largest-ever crackdowns on LGBTQ representation The banned gay romance that took Russia by storm . . . In the waning days of the Soviet Union, two teenage boys find each other at Pioneer Camp, a patriotic summer program similar to the Boy Scouts. Yury Konev, 16, anticipates the weeks ahead of him with boredom and dread, but things change when he meets 19-year-old counselor Volodya. The two boys are drawn to each other, and though both fear the consequences of their illegal attraction, its gravity pulls them together. Now, 20 years later, Yury returns to the abandoned camp to reminisce on the relationship that changed his life forever--and discovers that not all history is destined to remain in the past. Cowritten by a Ukrainian–Russian duo and published by an independent publisher, Popcorn Books, Pioneer Summer became a TikTok sensation and runaway #1 bestseller in Russia. Catalyzed by this success, Russian Parliament officials and anti-LGBT activists began a campaign to ban the novel and others like it, an effort which became law just two months after the second book in the series was published. The authors were forced to flee the country, and Popcorn Books ceased publication. But they--and we--will not be so easily cowed. Beginning in the summer of 2025, Pioneer Summer will become available for the first time in English, with the other two novels to follow.
About the author
Elena Malisova was born in a provincial Soviet town in the late 1980s, where she lived until she moved to Moscow in the late 2000s. Growing up, she wrote poems that were published in small local newspapers. Sylvanova and Malisova met in 2016 and together began working on
Pioneer Summer. In 2022, amid a wave of death threats both authors were receiving, Elena left Russia. She currently lives in Germany.
Kateryna Sylvanova was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine. After graduating from university, she moved to Russia, where she worked in a shoe store and spent her free time writing. In 2022, after Russia began its full-scale war against Ukraine, Kateryna left Russia and returned to Kharkiv.
Anne O. Fisher's most recent translation is Ukraine
War, Love: A Donetsk Diary by Ukrainian writer, journalist, and historian Olena Stiazhkina. Fisher and her husband, Derek Mong, are the incoming coeditors of the literary journal
At Length. Read more at www.anneofisher.com. She condemns Putin’s ongoing war of aggression on Ukraine.
