Russian writer Aleksei Lukyanov begins his story “Entwives” with a reference to the aforementioned entwives from J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, the female tree creatures lost to their male tree-creature counterparts. But then the story takes a precipitous turn into pretty rough Russian schoolyard banter before taking a few darker a very surprising turns that mark this as a really remarkable piece of fiction.
As a two-time finalist for the Debut Prize Lukyanov’s work has previously appeared in English translation in the anthology Squaring the Circle together with Alisa Ganieva (read her work in B O D Y here), Igor Savelyev, Polina Klyukina and Denis Osokin.
“Entwives” was translated into English by Veronica Muskheli and José Alaniz.
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