A book that moves in circles—memory, war, childhood, and landscape folding into one another without clear hierarchy.

The Holy Well is well within that venn diagram of autobiography and fiction, shaped by the afterimage of the Second World War but refusing to narrate it directly.

Katayev writes in fragments, impressions, and returns. Scenes surface and dissolve; time loosens; objects and places carry more weight than plot. Perception is key to the plot, we see how memory distorts, how experience lingers, how meaning resists being fixed. It shares more with European modernism than with the harder edges of Soviet realism, which is partly why it feels slightly out of place, even within its own context.

The book is in English, via the translation by Max Hayward and Harry Shukman. If you are a fan of Sebald or Kundera, this will be a lovely accompaniment for you.