On September 30, 2025, 32 new books were added to the list of printed publications that, according to the authorities, “may harm the national interests of the Republic of Belarus,” including two books by PEN Belarus member Sasha Filipenko:
- Day of the Dead. A Book with Fascinating Tasks – comp. S.A. Stankevich
- The Elephant – Sasha Filipenko
- Red Cross – Sasha Filipenko
- Duck, Death and the Tulip – Wolf Erlbruch
- The Little Soldier – Cristina Bellemo
- The Little Mole Who Wanted to Know Who Had Done It on His Head – Werner Holzwarth, Wolf Erlbruch
- The Secret Life of Farts and Burps – Mariona Tolosa Sisteré
- Marabou Stork Nightmares – Irvine Welsh
- The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins – Irvine Welsh
- Trainspotting – Irvine Welsh
- Glue – Irvine Welsh
- Porno – Irvine Welsh
- Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance (published in Russian as “Stupid Ride”) – Irvine Welsh
- Filth – Irvine Welsh
- Dead Men’s Trousers – Irvine Welsh
- The Acid House – Irvine Welsh
- Three Stories about Love and Chemistry – Irvine Welsh
- 18+. Part One – Natasha Heyden
- My Policeman – Bethan Roberts
- The Bastard von Narbe – Natalia Ignatova
- The Miseducation of Cameron Post – Emily M. Danforth
- The Danish Girl – David Ebershoff
- Unjustified Cruelty. The Impressionable Should NOT Read – Vl.Yak. Morshenyuk
- White Path, Black Fate – Leonid Sukhorukov
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S. Thompson
- Heroin – Tomasz Piątek
- 0.5 – Valery Shpyakin
- Naked Lunch – William Burroughs
- Wilder Girls – Rory Power
- Perfectly Preventable Deaths – Deirdre Sullivan
- Almost Transparent Blue – Ryū Murakami
- Piercing (published in Russian as “Karaoke”) – Ryū Murakami
The full list is available on our website.
Sasha Filipenko is a Belarusian writer, journalist, and TV host. 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 that were 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
Buy the book in Belarusian on the publisher’s website
Download for free in PDF format in Belarusian
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.