The Lady of the Mine by Sergei Lebedev

The Lady of the Mine

by Sergei Lebedev

Translated by Antonina W. Bouis

Antonina W. Bouis is an indefatigable champion of Sergei Lebedev, whose works she has masterfully translated into English. After A Present Past: Titan and Other Chronicles, the Lebedev/Bouis duo return to New Vessel Press with The Lady of the Mine, a novel which inhabits the same ghostly, subtly disturbing, fairy-tale atmosphere of his short stories.

The “lady” of the title is Marianna, a laundress who through unexplained mystical powers stands guard over a sealed shaft at a Ukrainian coal mine that hides collective sins. Buried in the shaft are countless victims of the various totalitarian regimes which have held sway and succeeded each other throughout the 20th Century. Marianna, with her fixation on purity and cleanliness, manages to keep the ghosts of the mine at bay, abetted by a coven of other “laundresses” who share her powers. Then, Russia invades Ukraine, and Marianna succumbs to a painful terminal illness which robs her of her powers, setting off a violent chain of events. Her daughter Zhanna appears poised to take her place, but not until present and past sins are, at least in part, avenged.    

Russian literature has long had a surreal, fantastical streak to it, akin to magical realism perhaps, but drawing from local folktales and legends. Lebedev taps into this tradition with his tale of witchy laundresses, talking ghosts and uncanny portents.  He creates a fable which is, alas, inspired by all-too-current tragedies, but also reminds us that the roots of the present reach back into a dark and distant past.  As with his short story collection, this novel is an indictment of totalitarian violence across the political divide: Stalinism, its forebears and successors, but also Nazism and antisemitism.  It may all sound depressing, but the novel ends on a surprising note of hope. 

Kindle Edition, New Vessel Press

Expected publication January 7, 2025