Red Cross

" Red Cross " — This is a story about memory and oblivion . A young football referee, Alexander, Sasha, comes to Minsk to try to rebuild a life broken in half by the will of an indifferent fate. And here he stumbles upon a woman, ninety-one-year-old Tatyana Alekseevna, who survived Stalin's terror with the hope of asking God a few questions sooner or later.

Sasha Filipenko (born in 1984) — a Belarusian with enormous journalistic experience. He is published in world-class press and actively defends common sense and humanity.

Author of six novels, as well as short stories and plays . Winner of a number of prestigious awards, the most notable of which is the French literary prize Transfuge for the novel “ Cremulant ”. as the best European novel of 2023.

Sasha Filipenk's novels have been translated into French, German, Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Italian, English, Croatian, Dutch, Spanish, Japanese, Swedish, Slovak, Thai, Korean languages. They are written in Russian, but in 2024 they were rewritten in Belarusian.

* Before taking this book to Belarus, make sure it is safe.

Belarusian author Filipenko exposes the recent history of a ruthless Russian state with the story of an unlikely friendship between a young widower and a woman who survived Stalinism and the Gulag... He brings freshness and wit to the familiar story of Soviet tragedy.

Publishers Weekly

It was very interesting to hear the voice of a young writer from a generation that hardly knew about the Soviet era, and to see how he grapples with this topic... Journalism can give you a lot of knowledge about the problems in , outline social backgrounds, cite numbers, and voice opinions, but nothing reveals the human soul as deeply as a novel.

Los Angeles Review of Books

What a touching and heartbreaking story about a woman who desperately wants to share what she experienced while she still remembers. Here’s how she explains why she’s losing her memories: “Because God is afraid of me. I have too many uncomfortable questions…” Thus begins a fascinating, painful and heartbreaking story of the Soviet Union during World War II.

BonnieD

"The Red Cross" is a serious book, not too depressing. Without a doubt, the story captivated me and touched me deeply. At the same time, I was also struck and inspired by the strength, energy, and courage with which the two main characters go through life.

LaViv