A music journalist and columnist writing about provincial Belarus suddenly decides to write a novel — and that novel is just as suddenly published and attracts a fair amount of attention. That’s Alexander Chernukho. I had never read his work before: I’ve almost never been interested in music criticism, and Belarusian online media had long since dropped out of my field of view altogether — especially after 2020, when many outlets simply ceased to exist.
As for what the state calls “official media,” it’s hard to describe that as journalism at all. In fact, according to the author himself, those very official outlets became one of the triggers that pushed him to write his satirical novel Pigs. Because how can you not laugh at what they print and broadcast? Though at its core, the book is first and foremost a response to Alexander’s own emotional experience of the events of 2020 in Belarus — just expressed in the form of a comic-satirical novel. After all, it’s well known that the best remedy for anger, bitterness, and melancholy is laughter.
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