Paranoia

A thinly veiled authoritarian Belarus, watched from every corner. A young writer's affair with the mistress of the state security minister plays out along the vast Stalinist spine of Independence Avenue, across Independence Square, in the shadow of the security headquarters, and by the slow curve of the Svislach. The map runs south to north through the centre of a real, surveilled Minsk.

Anatoly

Independence Avenue

The avenue

The novel's Minsk is organised around one enormous street, the Stalinist prospekt that the writer walks again and again. Laid out after the war as a parade route, its monumental blocks set the mood of a city built to be looked at, and to look back. This point marks October Square, near the middle of the axis.

Opening chapters

explicit The book names the great avenue running through the city; this marks its central stretch at October Square, on the axis the novel walks.

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