Anna Starobínets: "I crossed the border into China in a bus full of smuggled boots."

BarcelonaThe story of Anna Starobínets (Moscow, 1978) with the legend of the three-tailed eagles begins when she was 10 years old and studying Japanese at school, and ends not long ago in a house in Manchuria, eating a cake of boiled chicken blood next to a wrinkled woman with the most original women of contemporary Russian literature and author of books such as The Icarus gland (2013; Mai Més, 2023), has just published his most extensive and ambitious novel in Catalan, The Fox's Ford (Never Again), translated by Miquel Cabal. The heart of the book is the Guilla women, mythological beings known as kitsune in Japanese and from huli jing In Chinese, these witches are foxes in their original form, but they have the ability to transform into women who never age and, when they have sex with a man, they steal his life energy.

But The Fox's Ford It's not just a story made from Eastern mythology. The novel takes place during World War II in a small town on the border between Manchuria and the Soviet Union, where Maksim Kronin, a ruthless soldier whose memories have been taken, ends up. Through him, Starobínets weaves a whole series of plots that rise like a cathedral and contain friendly ghosts, terrifying experiments, an ancient monk with fascinating powers, mentalism, violence, and revenge. The Fox's Ford It is a literary monument full of complexity (it has almost 700 pages), but with a dizzying narrative rhythm that reads like a military march: fast, precise, and unstoppable.

"I'm aware that, at first, the reader needs an effort to enter the story. I wanted it to break a boundary, to reach the miraculous world of the novel through the real world. I wrote putting the reader in the body of each character so that they see things from their point of view. In the same way that in the book there are characters who put themselves in everyone's shoes," explains Starobínets, who had initially conceived this story with her husband (who died of cancer) and as a film script.

In the book, the protagonist flees from the Soviet forces and desperately searches for Ielena, his wife. The last thing he knows is that he ended up in a Japanese laboratory that was experimenting on human bodies. "That really happened. The Japanese experimented on prisoners and did some truly horrible things. For example, they would take them out into the cold, either alone or in pairs, and see who lived longer. Those who were alone died sooner, and they concluded that companionship and love somehow help you survive."

The adventure to discover the setting of the book

Once she had the story in place, Starobínets wanted to visit Manchuria to see for herself the setting in which she wanted to situate Maksim Kronin. "The conflict of identities was brutal," the author notes. She left Russia for the Chinese region of Dongbei Pingyuan (formerly Manchuria). "I crossed the border into China in a bus full of contraband boots, from the Russian side and from the Chinese side," she recalls.

Right on the shore of Lake Khanka is the village where practically the entire novel takes place. "I imagined a small fishing village and looked for one like it. I wanted to talk to its inhabitants, especially the older ones, to find out how they lived in the 1940s," says Starobínets. She didn't succeed, but the adventure wasn't a failure. She could only visit the region on a tourist route with a guide—"that way they want to make sure you're not a spy"—so she hired one. "It turned out the guide only took me to shops that sell fake boots like the ones they smuggled," explains the writer. By twisting her hands, she managed to enter a hospitable fishermen's hut, who invited her to eat. "I couldn't understand a word they were saying, but they brought me some kind of delicious pie. When I signed for what it was, the cook came out with a decapitated chicken, dripping with blood. She had boiled it and made that dish," explains Starobínets.

Banned from the cinema and a candidate for the blacklist

The Fox's Ford It appeared in Russian three years ago and until now had not been translated into any language (Catalan was the first, and a Spanish version will be released in the fall). In Russia, the novel was very successful and established Starobínets as one of the country's most important writers. However, her life has changed radically since then. With the outbreak of war in Ukraine, the author made several public appearances in which she criticized Putin's policies and the conflict. As a result, she had to go into exile in Georgia with her children. "If there were peace, the novel could have been made into a film, but the government banned me from entering the Russian film industry. They also put my name on the government's enemies list. So, in Russia, they're afraid to work with me. I can't blame them; I know if they did, it would be a challenge.

However, the author continues to work with her publisher in Russia. "I'm preparing a novel with a transgender character, which I know I won't be able to publish there. But since I had a contract to write a new book, I'm also writing a post-apocalyptic story with giant ants and a group of surviving humans who have returned to the Middle Ages," the writer explains. Among her more immediate plans is one she's particularly excited about: she wants to try to settle in Barcelona starting in the fall. "I have a special bond because it was the first city I visited with my husband," she explains. "My youngest son remembers him less and less, and I think moving here can help us keep his memory alive." "It's also a beautiful city."