“Russian Stephen King”: the author of horror stories Daria Bobyleva is inspired by strange antique objects

– Daria, the idea that someone should or at least can replace Stephen King did not just arise – the “maestro of horror” deprived the Russians of his works. So, someone will come up with the idea of ​​”import substitution” – they say, why are ours worse than the famous American.

– Of course, no author can replace another, each literary universe is unique. And let me remind you that domestic horror did not grow up on its own, on a fenced plot, it is largely based on the Western tradition, through which it found itself anew after the hegemony of realism, which dragged on for many decades, when all other genres were considered something frivolous.

Authors and readers of “terrible” stories had to make their way to each other for quite a long time and prove, firstly, that plot literature is also literature, and secondly, that horror as a genre is loved by many and has the right to exist. Therefore, a large and friendly community of horror lovers has formed, meetings, festivals and competitions are held, anthologies “The Most Terrible Book” are published. This rapid development has attracted many talented authors who started out as contestants.

– Name the most iconic names – who would you personally advise to know and read.

– Mikhail Parfyonov, Alexander Matyukhin, Dmitry Kostyukevich, Elena Shchetinina, Maxim Kabir, Alexander Podolsky. There are a lot of excellent authors in Russian-language horror who are passionate about their work, and, of course, it is very promising. The main thing is that he does not have to go into the samizdat underground again.

Do you consider yourself a horror writer?

– I myself do not write that horror. And not that mysticism. I like to call my lyrics “horror stories”, it’s a very cozy word. But I’m not trying to scare anyone, I’m just talking about how I see this world. Unsteady, disturbing, inexplicable, full of hidden traps and unknown inhabitants. Perhaps I write the most condo realism – just turned inside out and tells about the wrong side of reality.

— How does a typical universe of your book work? Are there any cross-cutting characters, plots that exist under different covers? Is it a single multi-reality or autonomous worlds?

– Most often I use the “serial model”, as in “Vyurki” or “Our Yard”. When each chapter is a separate story with its own plot, a separate series, but everything is united by characters, a place of action and a common, larger storyline.

For example, Our Court tells unusual and terrible stories from the life of a Moscow courtyard that took place in different years, and the unifying plot is the evolution of the relationship between people and their otherworldly “neighbors”. The chapters are like pieces of a mosaic, from which the overall picture is gradually formed, but each element is completely independent and interesting in itself. Sometimes the stories follow each other in chronological order, and in “The Windings”, for example, everything is mixed up. By composing this mosaic, the reader also participates in the construction of the plot.

— In horror, it is considered the norm to populate their artistic spaces with various inexplicable entities. Name the most unusual inhabitants of your worlds. And answer the main question: why are you interested in otherworldly creatures, and not ordinary people?

Who said that ordinary people don’t interest me? After all, they are often much more terrible than otherworldly creatures. As for unusual creatures, I heard the most surprises about the story “White, Long” – a completely canonical story with a ghost, transferred to a modern dacha. There, the incorporeal guest – or guest – did not have the most important thing: a noun, which could designate him.

And my most favorite unusual characters live in the not at all scary book “The Unaccounted for Planet”. These are intelligent spaceships that would circle the stars, away from any annoying civilizations, but the humanoids with whom they are in symbiosis are forever dragging them towards inhabited planets, into the thick of trouble. All the main characters are not just extraordinary, but not people at all, but still, of course, this is about us.

Which of your books is really the scariest? And the most “bloody”?

“I’m not trying to scare anyone on purpose, so I don’t know. They say that “Vyurki” is gloomy, but there are a lot of funny moments and just countryside gardening lyrics. I am not fond of artistic bloodletting, I prefer psychological stress. But in my books, someone gets eaten regularly. I don’t know what to do with it, I decided to consider it a metaphor.

– Do you agree to be “Russian Stephen King”? Literature, of course, is not Maslow’s pyramid, but it is more convenient to appoint someone as the best. Please note: if you refuse this role, I will require you to name another horror number one.

– They were looking for “new Tolstoy Lions” during the day with fire, now they switched to “Russian Stephen Kings”. In my memory, this challenge title has changed three or four owners, and now I have been honored. In my opinion, all such definitions are for jokes and book summaries. I prefer to perceive writers not through the prism of comparison, but directly, without any framework, as something new and unique every time.

Although, of course, I would like to be a “Russian Lovecraft”. But who will give me

– “Anti-everyday” – does this word describe what you affirm with your works? Myths, folklore, urban legends – what is the main source for your creativity?

– Rather, the wrong side of everyday life, its gloomy side, inaccessible to the ordinary eye. One of my collections of short stories is called “Night View”.

I really often rely on folklore in the broadest sense of the word. From village tales to modern urban legends or the secular folklore of spiritualists and mediums. Folklore brings to the surface the main fears and anxieties of society. Alien abductions, death groups, poisoned candy from a stranger on the street are all part of modern folklore too. It seems to me that all the authors of “terrible” stories are inspired by it.

– But nevertheless, from your contemporaries, who writes better than the rest? Mandelstam was proud of being close in time to Akhmatova, and you?

– It is impossible to choose just one. I literally just received a letter that a collection of short prose by Russian authors translated by young participants in the Polish-Russian school of translation “Words for Words” has been published. And there, among the stories of Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Leonid Yuzefovich, Tatyana Zamirovskaya, there is also my text. It’s not a sin to be proud of such a neighborhood.

– Do you have a diploma in translation, does this give you the opportunity to get acquainted with foreign literature without pauses? Do you feel the influence of American and European literature on your work? Where are the main books being written now, in what part of the planet?

– Without pauses, I rather get acquainted with foreign cinema, because I translate – more precisely, I translated before, now less and less – for cinema. We all experience the influence – and the influence of other authors, and the influence of other genres, and the influence of other types of art. Everything interacts, pollinates, enriches each other – and this is how a new one grows. Therefore, the main works are now being written everywhere and have already been written, and will be written later. Everything is woven into a single living fabric of world culture.

– How do you tune in the right way to sit down at the computer? Watch Critters, listen to Rammstein?

– Old and strange things help me to tune in to work, especially photographs. I worked for five years in an antique shop, and such strange photographs, illuminated, blurry, passed through my hands a great many. Either the children seem to have no faces, then the photograph shows a close-up of a doll that looks into the lens as if alive, then among the trees in a black-and-white forest you suddenly notice someone’s attentive eyes – either a glare, or a marriage, or really look out. And immediately some kind of story begins to come up, which, as a result, may have nothing to do with photography, but is inspired by it.

And as a child, I was surprised that my mother watches horror films before going to bed in order to sleep better.

Is fear good for health?

“Then I didn’t know that horror helps to get rid of accumulated stress, well, in addition, you look at the thinning ranks of heroes and think: hmm, but everything is not so bad with me. It’s like going into the woods and screaming there, and then coming back peaceful and really sleeping much better.

– That is, you propose to replace valerian with horror films?

– Why not?