Poor Folk Reading Club

Dearest readers,

It is with quiet anticipation and no small measure of delight that I extend to you an invitation—one that carries with it the promise of reflection, of shared solitude, and of the kind of quiet contemplation that only literature can inspire. I will be hosting a reading club on my Substack, where together we shall immerse ourselves in my earliest novel, Poor Folk.

I shall unveil the story in parts, revealing the lives of Makar Devushkin and Varvara Dobroselova letter by letter, as if we are receiving them ourselves—letters filled with hope, sorrow, and that peculiar mixture of both which so often inhabits the hearts of the downtrodden. Each week, a new fragment of their lives will come to you, and we shall engage in discussion, exploring not just their external sufferings, but the inner landscapes of their souls.

There is something uniquely human in the act of reading together, in witnessing the lives of others through the written word, while allowing our own lives to intermingle with the story. I hope that as we turn the pages together, you will not only find their experiences hauntingly familiar but also discover your own questions mirrored in theirs.

Please join me for this journey into the quiet streets of St. Petersburg, where the poor reside not just in spirit but in circumstance, and where, despite it all, love and dignity emerge.

The first section will be shared this coming week, and I eagerly await your thoughts, your reflections, and your companionship in this literary endeavor. It is a novel that, though modest in its scope, asks the deepest questions of human life, and I am eager to explore them once more with all of you.

Until then, may you find moments of peace in the quiet of your own lives, and prepare to step into the world of Poor Folk, where the smallest lives can contain the greatest tragedies and the most profound truths. Please share if you are interested.

Yours in anticipation and friendship,

Fyodor