Fiction
Retracing the Steps
by Gloria Mu
Description
Think Young Sheldon dropped into 1970s Soviet Ukraine. Gloria Mu’s narrator — a gifted, hyper-observant child — watches her world fracture: a brilliant but reckless surgeon father, a fragile mother, and the animals that shape her first sense of love and loss. First published in 2009 and reprinted five times, this celebrated novel combines the intimacy of Ferrante with the quiet myth-making of Tove Jansson.
First published in 2009 by AST, Russia’s leading publishing house, the book has been reprinted five times (most recently in 2022) and praised for its lyrical style and rich evocation of Ukrainian peasant culture.
More Information
Rights Information
Available: Print, Translation, Audiobook, Graphic Novel.
Optioned: Screen adaptation rights, licensed worldwide until 2031.
All other rights controlled by Angara Management.
Marketing Information
Published by AST Publishers in 2009; reprinted 5 times (latest 2022).
Strong crossover appeal: literary fiction, women’s fiction, autofiction.
Draws comparisons to Olga Tokarczuk and Svetlana Alexievich in its blend of memory, folklore, and history.
After this novel Gloria Mu co-authored a book with Boris Akunin in 2012.
Reviews
‘It is written simply and powerfully… I think she has a great literary future’ – Boris
Akunin
Author Biography
Gloria Mu is the pen name of a Ukrainian-born artist turned writer, published in Russian, Bulgarian, and English. Born in 1973, she studied at the Kharkiv State School of Art and earned a degree from the Saint Petersburg State Institute of Performing Arts. Between 2009 and 2014, she kept a popular LiveJournal blog that chronicled her eclectic career as illustrator, designer, papetier, pyrotechnic, actress, and translator.
Her breakthrough novel Retracing the Steps (2009) has been reprinted five times and expanded with the novella Jugglers and the short stories Ratbag and Good Doggies, which continue the saga of its protagonist. In 2012, she co-authored Children’s Book for Girls with renowned Russian writer Boris Akunin.
Gloria Mu’s most recent work is The Game of Jart, a high fantasy novel and finalist for the 2024 New Horizons Fantasy Fiction Award.
Copyright Information
Gloria Mu
Yulia Badmain
Angara Management, Ltd
Bibliographic Information
- Publisher AST Publishers
- Publication Date September 2009
- Orginal LanguageRussian
- ISBN/Identifier 9785170544738
- Publication Country or regionRussia
- FormatPaperback
- Pages480
- ReadershipGeneral
- Publish StatusPublished
- Original Language TitleВернуться по следам
- Original Language AuthorsГлория Му
- EditionReprinted 2010, 2013, 2020, 2022
- Copyright Year2009
- Page sizeA5 (200x126) mm
- IllustrationNone
- SeriesContemporary prose
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