Polina Zverev’s Transgender's Diary: Дневники Трансгендера is not so much a novel as it is an extended breath, tender, uncertain, lyrical, and raw. It floats somewhere between visual art and poetry, between confession and meditation. Part diary, part illustrated memoir, Zverev’s book is a striking contribution to transgender literature, and an unexpected lens into the emotional life of a Russian-born artist navigating gender, love, and identity in France.
Zverev, known for her evocative figurative and surrealist paintings, brings to her writing the same sense of abstraction and intimacy that defines her canvas. Her prose pulses with feeling. Transgender’s Diary is not about political slogans or rigid identity categories. It is a book about texture: the texture of skin in the wrong shape, the texture of language when it fails you, the texture of memory when it won’t let go.
Though France is often portrayed as a haven of tolerance compared to Zverev’s native Russia, the novel makes it clear that being transgender is never easy, no matter the postal code. Zverev's struggle with self-perception and internalized doubt echoes across her pages. Acceptance from others, she suggests, can feel meaningless if your own reflection continues to betray you. And yet, there is great love in this book: love for a partner, for art, for fleeting glances in the mirror that feel almost right.
