Born in Russia in 1986, Sergei Shikalov moved to France in 2016. In his first novel, written in his adopted language, the author recalls that in the 1990s, thanks to providential decriminalization, being gay and Russian seemed possible. “For around ten years, we existed. » In 2013, a law prohibited any form of “homosexual propaganda” aimed at minors, which includes any speech favorable to the LGBTQ+ community, whose members are then back among the “dangerous species”. In this initiatory and sociological story, where popular culture plays a key role, above which hovers the cult Mylène Farmer, the narrator uses “we”, a pronoun which expresses the collective while evoking the intimate. In a language that is as laconic as it is impactful, a style that moves without ever drawing on pathos, the author recreates violence and hope, guilt and desire, shame and romanticism. Once in France, dissociated from his homeland, but without betraying his people, his parents and his friends who remained there, the narrator manages to say: “It’s me. I exist. I have the honor to be. »
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