Lecții de italiană

Ivan Sergheevici Ogariov treats patients but cannot ease his own pain. At forty-two, he works at a private clinic in Moscow. His career thrives, yet his life feels empty. Work wears him down, and his marriage brings little joy. Family visits, traffic and life in a rented flat fill his days. He feels out of place in Putin’s Moscow in the 2000s.

His past still weighs on him. He grew up without love in the Soviet Union. Army trauma and a fatal accident also haunt him. Status and a practice of 3,207 patients offer no relief.

Then Malia, twenty-four, walks into his consulting room. Eccentric and full of energy, she wants to embrace life. Their affair leads him to give up his old world. They explore European museums and share poetry, cheese and aged Italian wine. In Tuscany, he finds pleasures he had lost sight of. He wants to guard their happiness at any cost. Malia, however, makes a different choice.

Marina Stepnova’s novel explores love, growing up and the cost of freedom. Its focus is the clash between escape and lasting change, set against Moscow and Tuscany.