The Dial

In the 1920s. After the Revolution and the Civil War, Russian émigrée Maria finds herself in a small coastal town in Yugoslavia. She leaves behind diaries, letters, and photographs—fragments of a life lived on the fault line of history, and a secret she herself never knew. In the 2020s. After fleeing a Russia gone mad, young Rita and her mother settle in the same place. Life here seems calm, almost peaceful—until Rita takes a job as assistant to an American journalist and first encounters Maria’s archive. What seems like ordinary work quickly turns into a mad Balkan adventure, a chaos where archival secrets, big money, ruthless security services, national myths, and an old tragedy collide. And between the lines of another woman’s diaries, Rita begins to see herself — and to hear the echo of a past that never truly ended. The Dial is a story of exile and memory, of illusion, choice, and the courage to face the past without turning away—and to decide how to live on. All this unfolds against the blue Adriatic, the warm stone of old towns, the spicy Mediterranean air, and the endless hum of cicadas. A debut novel by a Russian journalist who has lived exile firsthand — sincere, direct, and grounded in real experience.