Those of a geographical, or perhaps geopolitical, frame of mind might find it fitting that Elisa Shua Dusapin’s, after novellas set in Korea (Winter in Sokcho) and Japan (The Pachinko Parlour), has placed her third in Vladivostok, in Russia’s Far East. Other writers (Paul Yoon comes to mind) have also set their work in this trio of places with interlocking histories.
But it turns out to have been mostly happenstance. During her travels, Dusapin found herself in Vladivostok (as one does), where she met a trio of circus performers, experts in the Russian bar (which sounds better in French: “la barre russe”), and voilà, that was that. While not autobiographical, Vladivostok Circus is, like her previous two books, rooted in lived experience. And this one is extensively researched; one might think that Dusapin merely uses the circus as setting for another of her slow-burn explorations of relations, emotions and self-discovery, but no, Vladivostok Circus is as much about the circus as anything else: the circus as art form, as sport, and one—in her view—undervalued.
The Russian bar is a very real thing, as is the Vladivostok State Circus.

Nathalie, just out of university, has traveled to Vladivostok on a months-long project to design costumes for a trio of performers (celebrities of a sort on the circus circuit). Nathalie, the three performers—Anton, Nino and Anna—and Leon, a Canadian who’s the choreographer and who has set everything up, form a cautious yet transitory bond. Anton is the veteran; Nino young enough to be his son although he has by this been at it for years; Anna is a new addition to the team following a career-ending accident sustained by the previous “flyer”, Igor.
At this point, a digression is required: the Russian bar is a very real thing. Two men (the “bases”) hold a flexible bar which is used to launch the “flyer” several meters into the air, higher on each rebound. The Vladivostok State Circus is also very real and, unlike the Western conception of the circus as a traveling troupe under a big tent, a permanent fixture. As improbable as some of it feels, Dusapin’s novel is rooted in reality.
Dusapin should be read for her laconic, atmospheric and observant prose, as much as the story.
Nathalie’s visit starts off badly:
They don’t seem to be expecting me. The man in the ticket booth checks the list of names for the hundredth time.
Nathalie is somewhat lost, in a place where she’s not quite sure she should be, but also confused about relationships, those left behind and those where she is. The mutual understanding needed for her to design costumes for the trio’s special event at an upcoming festival in Ulan-Ude comes slowly; this is partly a matter of culture and language, but also a matter of the bonds between the three that Nathalie needs time to comprehend. There’s history here: Igor’s accident, Nino’s growing up in a circus family, sojourns with Cirque de Soleil in New York. Nathalie has history too, a relationship with a something-more-than-a-boyfriend called Thomas left behind in Europe—maybe that’s the real reason she’s in Vladivostok—and a physicist father from whom she seems to have reluctantly grown apart. Dusapin leaves much unresolved.
But Dusapin should be read for her laconic, atmospheric and observant prose, as much as the story, as interesting and evocative as the latter may be. Her command of style extends from the detail that rings so true as to conjure an entire scene in a sentence:
I go back to the hotel and eat … sitting on the floor in my room, using the bed in front of me as a table. It’s not very comfortable, the bed is too high…
to an expected and arresting simile
A couple are having their picture taken in the old-fashioned wedding carriage near the restaurant entrance. The woman has her foot stuck, her stocking is caught in the step. She’s wearing fishnet tights. Their criss-cross pattern makes me think of meat roasting on a spit…
to a combination of the two:
Anna sinks back into her chair. I find it difficult not to stare at her thighs, the muscles so taut I want to throw a ping-pong ball at her leg and watch it bounce off.
In 2024, the world of Vladivostok Circus seems unimaginable.
Anyone who has read Dusapin once will likely reach for the others. Vladivostok Circus contains much that is familiar, a young female protagonist, often sure in her actions, but unsure of her convictions. But Vladivostok Circus, ably translated, as were the previous two, by Aneesa Abbas Higgins, seems more open, and certainly less attached to the Asian side of Dusapin’s heritage; although Vladivostok is geographically in East Asia, culturally it is anything but. And although Anton is Buryat, he’s more Russian than Mongol.
Vladivostok Circus was published in French in 2020; the story of an integrated cultural environment, where young European women and Canadian choreographers work with Russian artists who perform regularly in “the West” from Frankfurt to Los Vegas, now seems exotic, even unimaginable. Anna, the flyer, is Ukrainian from Kyiv; here she speaks Russian without, it seems, a second thought, something unremarked upon. Dusapin fears the loss of circus tradition, but the wider world Dusapin describes here, while far from perfect, has already been lost, perhaps irrevocably.
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