Monks devious and devout – and an age-defying royal pair – chronicle the history of their fictional island in this witty critique of Western civilization and history itself. Eugene Vodolazkin, internationally acclaimed novelist and scholar of medieval literature, returns with a satirical parable about European and Russian history, the myth of progress, and the futility of war. This ingenious novel, described by critics as a coda to his bestselling Laurus, is presented as a chronicle of an island from medieval to modern times. The island is not on the map, but it is real beyond doubt. It cannot be found in history books, yet the events are painfully recognizable. The monastic chroniclers dutifully narrate events they witness: quests for power, betrayals, civil wars, pandemics, droughts, invasions, innovations, and revolutions. The entries mostly seem objective, but at least one monk simultaneously drafts and hides a “true� history, to be discovered centuries later. And why has someone snipped out a key prophesy about the island’s fate? These chronicles receive commentary today from an elderly couple who are the island’s former rulers. Prince Parfeny and Princess Ksenia are truly extraordinary: they are now 347 years old. Eyewitnesses to much of their island’s turbulent history, they offer sharp-eyed observations on the changing flow of time and their people’s persistent delusions. Why is the royal couple still alive? Is there a chance that an old prophecy comes to pass and two righteous persons save the island from catastrophe? In the tradition of Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, Julian Barnes’s A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters, and Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant, Vodolazkin is at his best recasting history, in all its hubris and horror, by finding the humor in its absurdity. For readers with an appetite for more than a dry, rational, scientific view of what motivates, divides, and unites people, A History of the Island conjures a world still suffused with mystical powers.

  WINNER OF THE BIG BOOK AWARD, THE LEO TOLSTOY YASNAYA POLYANA AWARD AND THE BEST PROSE WORK OF THE YEAR AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 READ RUSSIA PRIZE RUNNER-UP FOR THE EBRD LITERATURE PRIZE, 2020 Zuleikha is the model of a dutiful wife. Biddible and meek, she has resigned herself to brutal treatment at the hands of her cruel husband and the carping of her despotic mother-in-law. While Russia reels in the aftermath of its recent revolution, life in her small Tatar village is relatively untouched. Or so it seems to Zuleikha, until the day her husband is executed by communist soldiers.  Zuleikha is exiled to Siberia and forced to leave behind everything she knows. Yet in that harsh, desolate wilderness, she begins to build a new life for herself and discovers an inner strength she never knew she had. This is a supremely ambitious epic about one woman's determination, not only to survive, but to flourish in the face of the greatest adversity.

  The Russian bestseller about love and second chances, brimming with warmth and humour In the tiny village of Maran nestled high in the Armenian mountains, a place where dreams, curses and miracles are taken very seriously, a close-knit community bickers, gossips and laughs, untouched by the passage of time. A lifelong resident, Anatolia is happily set in her ways. Until, that is, she wakes up one day utterly convinced that she is dying. She lies down on her bed and prepares to meet her maker, but just when she thinks everything is ready, she is interrupted by a surprise visit from a neighbour with an unexpected proposal.  So begins a tale of unforeseen twists and unlikely romance that will turn Maran on its head and breathe a new lease of life into a forgotten village. Narine Abgaryan's enchanting fable is a heart-warming tale of community, courage, and the irresistible joy of everyday friendship. 

Shortlisted for the Andrei Bely Prize and Russia s National Big Book Award

Larionov. A general of the Imperial Russian Army who mysteriously avoided execution by the Bolsheviks when they swept to power and went on to live a long life in Yalta, leaving behind a vast heritage of memoirs.

Solovyov. The young history student who travels to Crimea, determined to find out how Larionov evaded capture after the 1917 revolution.

With wry humour, Eugene Vodolazkin, one of Russia s foremost contemporary writers, takes readers on a fascinating journey through a momentous period of Russian history, interweaving the intriguing story of two men from very different backgrounds that ultimately asks whether we can really understand the present without first understanding the past.

Klotsvog is a novel about being Jewish in the Soviet Union and the historical trauma of World War II-and it's a novel about the petty dramas and demons of one strikingly vain woman. Maya Abramovna Klotsvog has had quite a life, and she wants you to know all about it. Selfish, garrulous, and thoroughly entertaining, she tells us where she came from, who she didn't get along with, and what became of all her husbands and lovers. In Klotsvog, Margarita Khemlin creates a first-person narrator who is both deeply self-absorbed and deeply compelling. From Maya's perspective, Khemlin unfurls a retelling of the Soviet Jewish experience that integrates the historical and the personal into her protagonist's vividly drawn inner and outer lives. Maya's life story flows as a long monologue, told in unfussy language dense with Khemlin's magnificently manipulated Soviet cliches and matter-of-fact descriptions of Soviet life. Born in a center of Jewish culture in Ukraine, she spent the war in evacuation in Kazakhstan. She has few friends but has had several husbands, and her relationships with her relatives are strained at best. The war looms over Klotsvog, and the trauma runs deep, as do the ambiguities and ambivalences of Jewish identity. Lisa Hayden's masterful translation brings this gripping character study full of dark, sly humor and new perspectives on Jewish heritage and survival to an English-speaking audience.

Klotsvog is a novel about being Jewish in the Soviet Union and the historical trauma of World War II-and it's a novel about the petty dramas and demons of one strikingly vain woman. Maya Abramovna Klotsvog has had quite a life, and she wants you to know all about it. Selfish, garrulous, and thoroughly entertaining, she tells us where she came from, who she didn't get along with, and what became of all her husbands and lovers. In Klotsvog, Margarita Khemlin creates a first-person narrator who is both deeply self-absorbed and deeply compelling. From Maya's perspective, Khemlin unfurls a retelling of the Soviet Jewish experience that integrates the historical and the personal into her protagonist's vividly drawn inner and outer lives. Maya's life story flows as a long monologue, told in unfussy language dense with Khemlin's magnificently manipulated Soviet cliches and matter-of-fact descriptions of Soviet life. Born in a center of Jewish culture in Ukraine, she spent the war in evacuation in Kazakhstan. She has few friends but has had several husbands, and her relationships with her relatives are strained at best. The war looms over Klotsvog, and the trauma runs deep, as do the ambiguities and ambivalences of Jewish identity. Lisa Hayden's masterful translation brings this gripping character study full of dark, sly humor and new perspectives on Jewish heritage and survival to an English-speaking audience.

From award-winning author Eugene Vodolazkin comes this poignant story of memory, love and loss spanning twentieth-century Russia

A man wakes up in a hospital bed, with no idea who he is or how he came to be there. The only information the doctor shares with him is his name: Innokenty Petrovich Platonov.

As memories slowly resurface, Innokenty begins to build a vivid picture of his former life as a young man in Russia in the early twentieth century, living through the turbulence of the Russian Revolution and its aftermath. Soon, only one question remains: how can he remember the start of the twentieth century, when the pills by his bedside were made in 1999?

Reminiscent of the great works of twentieth-century Russian literature, with nods to Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment and Bulgakov’s The White Guard, The Aviator cements Vodolazkin’s position as the rising star of Russia’s literary scene.