At the end of August 1991, the USSR collapsed. At the same time, an 18-year-old young man, a petty thief whom everyone calls the Gray, leaves Baltiysk prison after serving a six-month sentence. Passing through Kaliningrad, the former German Königsberg, where a prison boss has entrusted him with a mission, he plans to return home to Sovietsk, on the Lithuanian border. But the world has changed. After Donbass And Wolves (Les Arènes, 2020 and 2022), dark novels which took Ukraine as their theater, Benoît Vitkine, permanent correspondent of World in Moscow, offers us with The enclave a chaotic wandering. A tipping point where boundaries — both physical and moral — are being redefined. A novel of accelerated learning, embodied and subtle, as the Gray witnesses the death of his country at the same time as that of his youth. “Our country receives freedom, but are there free people to receive it? » asks a character. A question which, in Russia, remains burning today.
To watch on video