Laura grew up in Almaty and feels out of place in Amsterdam. When she returns to Moscow for the first time in years, to the center of the empire that has dominated her family’s lives and destinies, she thinks she recognizes someone from her childhood. The encounter exposes the rifts in her own life, and the bigger history that lies behind them. One image in particular has stayed with her: a felt tent and its inhabitants, on the outskirts of Almaty, behind it the mountains.

Mountain, Shard is a unique debut novel about people who carry the twentieth century on their backs. An ambitious and intimate narrative about the distorting and formative power of memory. It tells history from the other side, far away from the center of power, following the chaotic and exciting years after independence from Soviet occupation.