Shmarakov R. L. Ovid in Exile: A Novel. – Salamandra P.V.V., 2011. – 590 pp., illus. – PDF.

In Roman Shmarakov’s book, foremen and plumbers become heroes of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, flying fish fight bats to the death, fairies enchant cities, old women turn into princesses, and young men into seductive girls, policemen are divided elegant short stories and underwater monsters converge in an epic battle. “Ovid in Exile” is a laboratory in which the author cheerfully and mercilessly disembowels a variety of literary styles and genres from fairy tales and chivalric romance to village prose, popular horror literature, science fiction and “Slavic fantasy” ” and at the same time dissects the fabric of his own book. In this incredibly funny phantasmagoric novel, written by a classical philologist and famous translator of ancient poetry, the grotesque coexists with the absurd, everyday life writing with unbridled fantasy, buffoonery with daring and accurate descriptions of the cultural chaos surrounding us.