Little Foxes Took Up Matches
Best Book of 2022 So Far by VOGUE and Debutiful
Best book of the month by NYLON, Chicago Review of Books, and Kirkus,
Most Anticipated Book of the Year at the Rumpus
An arresting coming of age, an exploration of gender, a modern folktale, a powerful portrait of a family—Katya Kazbek breaks out as a new voice to watch.
When Mitya was two years old, he swallowed his grandmother’s sewing needle. For his family, it marks the beginning of the end, the promise of certain death. For Mitya, it is a small, metal treasure that guides him from within. As he grows, his life mirrors the uncertain future of his country, which is attempting to rebuild itself after the collapse of the Soviet Union, torn between its past and the promise of modern freedom. Mitya finds himself facing a different sort of ambiguity: is he a boy, as everyone keeps telling him, or is he not quite a boy, as he often feels?
After suffering horrific abuse from his cousin Vovka who has returned broken from war, Mitya embarks on a journey across underground Moscow to find something better, a place to belong. His experiences are interlaced with a retelling of a foundational Russian fairytale, Koschei the Deathless, offering an element of fantasy to the brutal realities of Mitya’s everyday life.
Told with deep empathy, humor, and a bit of surreality, Little Foxes Took Up Matches is a revelation about the life of one community in a country of turmoil and upheaval, glimpsed through the eyes of a precocious and empathetic child, whose heart and mind understand that there are often more than two choices. An arresting coming of age, an exploration of gender, a modern folktale, a comedy about family, Katya Kazbek breaks out as a new voice to watch.
JAMES CAÑÓN:
“Absorbing and unremittingly honest, Little Foxes Took Up Matches is a magnificent journey with a thunderous effect that both injures and mends. Kazbek writes this fascinating story with eloquence, human understanding and compassion. She illuminates post-soviet Russia’s contradictions in prose as undeflected and fearless as the contradictions themselves are piercing and violent.It’s nothing short of exceptional that anyone can write original, brilliant, and witty prose in a language not their own; we marvel at a Vladimir Nabokov, a Joseph Conrad, a Jhumpa Lahiri, a Katya Kazbek.”
SOPHIA SHALMIYEV:
“A luscious modern queer fable drawn in post-Soviet Russian red lipstick. Kazbek’s dreamy family of misfits forged in the feminine occult will stay with you forever. Brava!”
AFIA ATAKORA:
“I am in love! Little Foxes Took Up Matches is an utterly spectacular modern myth. This rapturous coming-of-age, equal parts wit and grit, weaves a spellbinding tale about having the courage to incite a revolution in oneself. With this debut Katya Kazbek proves she is an absolute legend in her own right.”
COURTNEY MAUM:
“An unpredictable love story that is mesmeric, totally original, and deeply, deeply touching, Little Foxes Took Up Matches examines our competing human instincts to belong and to escape. Kazbek has reinvented—and bewitched—the coming-of-age genre, and I can’t wait to succumb to whatever magic she writes next.”
DEBUTIFUL:
“Sexuality, family bonds, and hope are all explored delicately in this unforgettable debut.” (read more)
k-ming chiang
“Katya Kazbek’s Little Foxes Took Up Matches is a stunning and transformative novel that shows us the playful possibility and subversive quality of queer myth-making. With humor, heart, and expansiveness, Kazbek forges a new language to belong inside and reinvents storytelling. This book will swallow you and shelter you. It’s pure magic and will rearrange you from the inside-out.”
david ebershoff:
“A Russian satire, a queer myth, an enchanting coming of age story—Little Foxes Took Up Matches is one of the most original, and charming, debuts I’ve read in some time. Katya Kazbek writes with wit, heart, and the needle-prick of life.”