Yulia Tulegenova’s review of “Anonymous Letters” appeared on Creativitys.UK this week, and reading it felt like discovering someone had mapped the secret architecture of my own intentions. She calls the novel “a call to the soul” — a phrase that captures something I struggled to articulate about Anna’s journey into psychological terrain I wasn’t entirely sure I understood myself.
What strikes me most is how Yulia recognizes the deliberate patience in the book’s construction. She sees that this isn’t “a thriller of frantic chases and convenient twists” but rather a “profound psychological drama that builds its tension with chilling patience.” This understanding means everything to a writer who chose atmosphere over action, internal landscape over external plot.
Her insight about the “vast, echoing spaces between the words” reveals a critic who reads not just what’s written, but what lives in the silences. She grasps that “the true mystery is not of a forgotten village, but of a soul’s capacity for belief, for fear, and for transformation.” This is precisely the territory I wanted to explore — how desperate hunger for meaning reshapes perception, how the stories we construct become indistinguishable from truth.
“The genius of the novel lies not in what is said, but in the vast, echoing spaces between the words,” Yulia writes, and I feel understood in ways that validation rarely achieves.
As both accomplished visual artist and seasoned literary critic, Yulia brings a multifaceted perspective that enriches her reading. Her background spans film production at the prestigious Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) and art criticism across multiple platforms, from Russian publications like God Literatury to international venues. This cinematic training shows in how she understands the craft behind atmosphere creation — the “oppressive quiet,” the “damp chill,” the “pervasive sense of melancholy” that becomes “so tangible you can almost feel the mildew.”
Her recent recognition in London’s art scene, including her 2024 exhibition at Boomer Gallery and first-place award in abstract painting, confirms she approaches literature not just as critic but as practicing artist who understands the vulnerabilities of creative work.
Her recommendation that readers “pour something a little stronger than tea” before entering this world makes me smile. She knows that some books demand ritual, require us to prepare for transformation.
Reading thoughtful criticism like this reminds me why I write — to create those “strange, mesmerising worlds” that lodge themselves in minds and refuse to leave unchanged.
— Writer Anastasia Dubinina