The Gospel According To…
Do you hope that your laws will save you? Do you hope for the shelter of your police, your army? The protection of your spies, detectives, agents? Do you think your gowns, your uniforms, your epaulettes, your ties will form your chainmail? Do you think all of your prosecutor’s ID cards and all your deputy’s badges in all of their colours will cover you like a shield? Do you think you can hide in your comfortable apartments, at your apple-tree dachas, on your blue-sky foreign beaches, in your velvet theatre box seats? You’re blind! How could you be so wrong? Do you not see that my warmongering is here already, not at your walls, but within your families?”
Fathers abuse their power, and states abuse theirs; law enforcement agencies do it all the time, not even God is exempt of this vice. Our protagonist, Eve, takes a journey from ordinary Moscow gay man to star of the resistance. He lives in his own little world, full of sex, love and fun; a pariah to those around him, closeted yet free, scared yet courageous. Just when it seems like there’s no escape from this violent, macho world, he discovers his zeal for the fight. In his sufferings and struggles Eve is no exception to the rule – and yet not everyone can bear the cross he bears. His story is paralleled by another, of two different messiahs from two thousand years ago – Yeshua and Judas.
The Gospel According To… could be called documentary fiction. It is based on real events that have happened to real people, including the author himself, as well as others who met with the repressive machinery of an authoritarian state. Even the biblical part of the novel is no invention – it is based on the apocryphal gospels, damned by the Church.
The Gospel According To… has received funding from English PEN’s PEN Translates programme, supported by Arts Council England. English PEN exists to promote literature and our understanding of it, to uphold writers’ freedoms around the world, to campaign against the persecution and imprisonment of writers for stating their views, and to promote the friendly co-operation of writers and the free exchange of ideas.
The Gospel According To… is an emotional rollercoaster that grips on every page. Through honest and captivating stories of queer sex, love, and loss, I didn’t want to get off. Sergey has written a masterpiece that shares an incredible tapestry of Russian Queer life that has been hidden for too long. Until now. It is an absolute triumph. Dan Glass, author and activist
The Gospel According To… is an indictment of the Russia of homophobia and tyranny. Imagine a conversation between Mikhail Bulgakov and Guillaume Dustan. It deserves your attention. Dan Healey, University of Oxford, author of ‘Russian Homophobia from Stalin to Sochi’
Sergey Khazov-Cassia (he/him) is an award-winning Russian journalist and writer now living in France. For years he has been travelling in Russia, writing and filming about its people and its system, witnessing state injustice and individual courage. His two novels are now banned within Russia due to anti-LGBTQ legislation, he has been a victim of attacks and police pressure, yet he stayed in the country until it became totally unsafe for opposition journalists, and fled Russia after the invasion of Ukraine.
Reuben Woolley (he/him) is a freelance writer and a translator from Russian to English. His work focuses on Russian-language literature, the political left, and LGBTQ+ Russian history. He actively finds and advocates for LGBTQIA+ voices in the Russian cultural sphere. This is his second book-length translation. His first, Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv by Andrey Kurkov, was longlisted for the International Booker Prize and shortlisted for the EBRD prize.
£13.99
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Available from 25 March 2025
