Crowned Crag

The Leningrad school of fantasy gave the genre many glorious names. Georgy Martynov, Ilya Varshavsky, Vadim Shefner, Alexander Shalimov… But one of them truly stands out, and not just because its owner is a woman. Olga Larionova suddenly shone brightly in the fantastic sky in the mid-sixties, instantly gaining a huge circle of admirers. “Leopard from the Top of Kilimanjaro”, we speak of it — about the novel which, according to online experts, “is not just considered one of Larionova's best books, — it can safely be added to the treasury of world fantasy. If the writer were American, she would surely have received the 'Hugo' or 'Nebula' awards (or maybe even both).” She was published infrequently, but almost every work coming out during those sparse years for fantasy (the sixties to the eighties) was a direct hit — that is, into the hearts of readers.