Book Club: Book of the Month — Kruuga

Book Club: Book of the Month — Kruuga

Discussion with theatre director Vladimir Kuznetsov and the novel’s author, Anna Luzhbina

What happens when we look at the same story through the eyes of different people?

This October, Auditoria launches its book club. The first book we will read and discuss together is Kruuga by Anna Luzhbina, the writer’s first novel following her short story collection Yurkie Lyudi.

The story takes place in a Karelian village on the shore of Lake Segozero, where visitors from the city arrive and gradually become drawn into the lives of the local people and a place that initially seems easy to understand.

But in Kruuga, almost nothing can be trusted at first glance. The narrative shifts from one character to another, the present collides with the past, and reality with myth. The same story changes depending on who tells it and whose eyes we see it through.

Kruuga is a traditional Karelian circle dance, resembling an open-ended round dance. People move together, yet they cannot always see the faces of those beside them. This is perhaps one of the novel’s central metaphors.

On October 4 at 19:00, we will meet at Auditoria to discuss the novel: its characters and their different versions of events, outsiders and locals, memory and mythology, and why different readers can discover entirely different stories within the same text.

The book club will be hosted by Vladimir Kuznetsov, theatre director and actor.