On November 13 the Ministry of Information updated the list of “extremist materials” and added two new books:
- Sasha Filipenko, Red Crosses (Kraków: «Gutenberg», 2025)
- Sasha Filipenko, The Elephant (Kraków: «Gutenberg», 2025)
Sasha Filipenko is a Belarusian writer, journalist, TV host, PEN Belarus member. He is the author of the novels The Elephant, Red Crosses, Extermination, Former Son, Ideas, Return to Ostrog, Cremulator, as well as a number of short stories and plays. A laureate of various literary prizes, his books have become bestsellers in Germany and the Netherlands, and were also recommended by Oprah Winfrey’s book blog.
The books by Sasha Filipenko were also included in the list of list of those “harmful to national interests”.
The Elephant
“In fact, this book is about people being afraid to live, being afraid to fight, being afraid to speak up, being afraid to be like their mothers, being afraid to fall off a horse, being afraid to admit the obvious, being afraid to break up with a drug addict, being afraid to suffer, being afraid to get into an accident, being afraid to put a comma in the wrong place, being afraid to be sensitive, being afraid of tenants, being afraid of jellyfish, being afraid to sing in the street to passersby and not pay for the fare, being afraid to breathe, being afraid to be late, being afraid to come early, being afraid to leave a bad play in the middle of a performance, being afraid to make a mistake, being afraid to point out a mistake, being afraid to believe, being afraid of critics and commentators, being afraid to go to parent-teacher conferences, being afraid to defend your boundaries, being afraid not to be afraid, being afraid to get a job, being afraid of the rush, being afraid of turbulence, being afraid that she will never call again, being afraid, to admit that he is still the one she needs, to be afraid of war, to be afraid of appearing sensitive, to be afraid of overdoing it, to be afraid of speaking another language with mistakes, to be afraid of escalators, to be afraid of not getting up, to be afraid of not being strong enough, that someone else will do it better, to be afraid of being honest, to be afraid of reading what he has written, to be afraid of putting down bad books, to be afraid of missing a beat, to be afraid of faking it, and to be afraid of truly loving.”
(c) Sasha Filippenko
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Red Crosses
One struggles not to forget, while the other would like nothing better. Tatiana Alexeyevna is an old woman, over ninety, rich in lived experience, and suffering from Alzheimer’s. Every day, she loses a few more of her irreplaceable memories. Alexander is a young man whose life has been brutally torn in two.
Tatiana tells her young neighbor her life story, a story that encompasses the entire Russian 20th century with all its horrors and hard-won humanity. Little by little, the old woman and the young man forge an unlikely friendship and make a pact against forgetting.