Helsinki, July 2020. A scientist who fled Russia to escape trumped-up treason charges is found dead

outside his apartment. The task of sorting through his home library falls to Darja, a local student helping at a second-hand bookshop. In a huge atlas of Arctica, she discovers notes from a mysterious investigation the deceased had been conducting.

The scientist had searched for people from the former Soviet Union, now scattered across the globe — from Kazakhstan and Georgia, Finland and Italy, to Canada. In the recorded interviews, the subjects are asked to recall an anthology of sci-fi short stories. These stories appear to be written by authors of various origins — Latvia, Lviv (Ukraine), Leningrad, etc. — translated into Russian or published in their original languages. Despite differences in language, publishers, story titles, and author names, the plots and themes are strikingly similar. What’s more, every reader describes their experience as nothing short of miraculous and life-changing.

Now Darja is set to continue the dead scientist’s investigation, beginning with identifying the NSFL readers’ club, whose members, it turns out, hired him in the fi rst place. This decision sets off a breath-taking chain of events that will turn Darja’s dreamy pandemic summer upside down — and might change the future of our civilization.

New Science Fiction from L. is a gripping literary quest set on the eve of a new European war and in

the twilight years of the Soviet empire. It speaks in many voices and takes the reader to many places — from Kyiv and Tbilisi in the 1980s to Riga, Bologna, and St. Petersburg in the 2010s.

Both a compassionate tale of self-discovery and anunfl inching reckoning with toxic nostalgia, New Science Fiction from L. offers a glimpse of what Russophone literature can achieve when it moves

beyond navel-gazing and engages with the world beyond Russian imperial myths.