Nadezhda in the Dark

By: Yelena Moskovitch

Published by Dzanc Books, 2026-01-13

<p><b>A stunning, novel-in-verse exploration of LGBTQ+ life in the shadow of the former Soviet bloc</b></p> <p>On the longest night of a milk-dark Berlin winter, a doomed couple sit side by side on their bed. Both fled the Soviet Union as children, the narrator from Ukraine, and her girlfriend from Russia.</p> <p>The lights are off. Neither speak.</p> <p>In their silence, a century of Ukrainian and Russian history resurfaces: forgotten literary characters, Yiddish maxims, contraband jokes, LGBT life in the post-Soviet bloc, Jewish diaspora to Israel, beauty vlogs, shaken sanity, hidden messages in Russian pop music, resistance in Odessa, Moscow club raids, and the death of a beloved friend.</p> <p>The requiem inside the narrator's head circles the question pinned within the darkness: What does it mean to hold onto Nadezhda, whose name means "hope"? And is holding it enough?</p>