In 2016, Svetlana Satchkova left Moscow for the United States because she was concerned about her son’s and her own safety under Vladimir Putin’s rule. Especially following Putin’s power grab in Crimea, she felt she could no longer tolerate the country’s authoritarianism and corruption. Now a Russian-American arts journalist, Satchkova is also a research fellow at the Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia at New York University.
The Undead is her fourth novel and the first written in English. It weaves fiction with aspects of Satchkova’s life in Russia as well as recent political events, such as the death in prison of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in February 2024. It is dedicated to Navalny and to Russian political prisoners past and present — letting readers know from the start that the novel means business despite its wry humor, sarcasm, and jokey undertones.
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