Han Ong Reads Lyudmila Ulitskaya

In a story that reads like a darkly comic fugitive tale, Lyudmila Ulitskaya’s 'The Fugitive' follows Boris Ivanovich Muratov, a Soviet artist who escapes arrest after creating subversive caricatures of communist icons made from Bologna. What begins as a tense KGB raid transforms into a surreal odyssey of survival, where Muratov finds refuge in a remote village and is embraced by a community of aging women whose lives are marked by loss, resilience, and unapologetic vitality. The story’s true power lies not in political resistance but in its radical honesty about aging, the body, and the quiet dignity of survival. Han Ong, the reader and guest, calls the bath scene—where Muratov witnesses the naked, weathered bodies of the old women—a moment of profound revelation: a grotesque, hilarious, and deeply human portrait of existence that defies both censorship and shame. Ulitskaya’s genius is in blending satire with tenderness, showing how art, freedom, and joy can flourish even in the most barren landscapes. The story ends not with triumph, but with a quiet, bittersweet survival: Muratov escapes the state’s wrath only to be labeled a pornographer, emigrates, and rebuilds his life—not as a martyr, but as a man who learned to see beauty in ruin. The episode reveals Ulitskaya as a writer of immense moral and artistic courage, whose work refuses to romanticize suffering while still finding wonder in the everyday.