The undead

Maya is a young Russian filmmaker who makes a low-budget horror movie with her friends. It looks like a promising start to a career in independent film. What she does not realize is that the joking, lo-fi satire she has made will draw the attention of censors at the highest levels of the Russian police state.

The novel is set in contemporary Russia, where a government ruthlessly oppresses artists who dare to mock the regime. Maya and her friends run afoul of it, and the story follows an artist being crushed by state power and the choices a person makes inside a system where free expression is effectively illegal.

Svetlana Satchkova writes as an emigre from Putin's Russia. The book is a tense story that works as a parable and a warning about political oppression.