• The Disappearing Act

Fitzcarraldo Editions

The Disappearing Act

by Maria Stepanova.

Translated from Russian by Sasha Dugdale.

  • £12.99
  • Pre-order
  • Paperback scheduled for publication on 26/02/2026
  • Page count: 136 pages
  • ISBN: 9781804272329
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Synopsis

The writer known as M. is living in exile while her home country wages war on a neighbouring state. Wracked by shame and severed from her language, M. finds herself unable to write, unmoored in a present where the future feels unknowable. When she travels to a nearby country for an event, a twist of fate leaves her stranded in an unfamiliar city, phoneless and untraceable. In this rupture, she feels a flicker of liberation - the possibility of starting over - but memories of childhood, books, films and tarot cards pull her back, the last fragments of a vanishing world. Then she meets a troupe of circus performers who invite her to join them. For a moment, reinvention seems within reach. Oscillating between reality and dream, written in rich, hypnotic prose, The Disappearing Act is a haunting meditation on identity, language and the fragile desire to disappear by Maria Stepanova, one of Russia's greatest living writers.

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Fitzcarraldo Editions is an independent publisher specialising in contemporary fiction and long-form essays. Founded in 2014, it focuses on ambitious, imaginative and innovative writing, both in translation and in the English language.

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