Wings

By Mikhail Kuzmin and Paul Bailey

New to St Petersburg, young, naive Vanya Smurov finds a mentor in the enigmatic and intellectual Larion Stroop, who initiates him into a fascinating sphere of art and beauty. As Vanya
is drawn into Stroop's world of aesthetic sensuality, he also becomes aware that Stroop is a frequenter of bathhouses: a homosexual. Disturbed by this revelation, Vanya abandons Stroop
and moves to the Volga countryside in search of a more traditional existence. Yet he soon finds that the alternatives offered there are equally unsettling, leading him to question his initial reaction to Stroop's hedonistic lifestyle.
Published here in a new translation, Wings was the first Russian novel to focus on homosexuality. Greeted with outrage when it appeared in 1906, this unjustly neglected work is a groundbreaking and sensitive study of a young man's struggle to come to terms with his identity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hesperus Press Ltd.
• Release date: Nov 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781843919827

Mikhail Kuzmin

Born in Russia in 1872, Mikhail Kuzmin was a prominent novelist, poet, playwright and critic. He was a leading contributor to Russia’s Silver Age of Poetry, publishing the first substantial volume of free verse in Russian literature, and is best known as the first Russian writer to tackle the issue of homosexuality.