An Interview with Andrey Filimonov: "War can be a metaphor for male weakness and the desire to escape from the problems of real life into imaginary worlds of heroism"

Richard Coombes and I had a wonderful conversation with writer Andrey Filimonov. Richard and I are not cotranslators, but we are united by a mutual affinity for Andrey’s prose. Richard has translated a sample of Andrey’s second-to-last novel World Creation Recipes (“Рецепты сотворения мира”, published by Elena Shubina’s Publishers, 2018), while I have translated a sample of Andrey’s third-to-last novel Manikin and the Saints (“Головастик и святые”, published by Ripol-Klassik, 2016). Thanks go to B O D Y Magazine for publishing this colorful, playful, and at times surprising interview!