Eugene Vodolazkin

Considerat o capodoperă a literaturii ruse actuale, bestsellerul Laur este de două ori câştigător al Premiului Bolşaia Kniga – Premiul întâi şi Premiul cititorilor – pe 2013. A primit, în acelaşi an, Premiul Iasnaia Poliana (Lev Tolstoi). Este tradus în peste douăzeci de ţări. Amintind de filmul Andrei Rubliov şi de romanul Numele trandafirului, bestsellerul Laur readuce la viaţă secolul al XV-lea, într-o intrigă străbătând timpul şi spaţiul, cu un personaj complex, care este pe rând vraci, nebun sfânt, pelerin şi călugăr. Cu o scriitură de o simplitate rafinată, trecând firesc de la real la fantastic şi de la cele lumeşti la cele sfinte, cu un spirit liber în religiozitatea lui inteligentă, cu un umor subtil şi o sensibilitate cuceritoare, Evgheni Vodolazkin ne oferă o carte de o mare frumuseţe şi profunzime, pentru a ne spune o poveste tulburătoare, pe care o numeşte „roman neistoric“. „Sunt lucruri despre care este mai uşor să vorbeşti în contextul unei Rusii străvechi. Despre Dumnezeu, de exemplu. După părerea mea, legăturile cu El erau mai directe pe vremuri. Mai mult decât atât, pur şi simplu existau. Acum natura acestor legături îi preocupă doar pe puţini, şi asta e neliniştitor. Să fi aflat noi, din Evul Mediu încoace, vreun lucru complet nou, care să ne permită să ne relaxăm?“ (Evgheni VODOLAZKIN)

It is the late fifteenth century and a village healer in Russia is powerless to help his beloved as she dies in childbirth, unwed and without having received communion. Devastated and desperate, he sets out on a journey in search of redemption. But this is no ordinary journey: it is one that spans ages and countries, and which brings him face-to-face with a host of unforgettable, eccentric characters and legendary creatures from the strangest medieval bestiaries. Laurus’s travels take him from the Middle Ages to the Plague of 1771, where as a holy fool he displays miraculous healing powers, to the political upheavals of the late-twentieth century. At each transformative stage of his journey he becomes more revered by the church and the people, until he decides, one day, to return to his home village to lead the life of a monastic hermit – not realizing that it is here that he will face his most difficult trial yet.Laurus is a remarkably rich novel about the eternal themes of love, loss, self-sacrifice and faith, from one of Russia’s most exciting and critically acclaimed novelists.

Solovyov, a young scholar born into obscurity, arrives in St Petersburg to have his thesis topic handed to him: the story of General Larionov. Dismissive at first, his subject soon intrigues the young scholar, even obsesses him: this is no ordinary General. Not only did Larionov fight for the monarchist Whites during the Civil War, he did so with bloody distinction. So how did he manage to live unharmed in the Soviet Union, on a Soviet pension, cutting an imposing figure on the Yalta beaches, leaving behind a son and a volume of memoirs? The budding young historian sets off to Crimea to look for some lost pages from the General’s diary, and on his journey discovers many surprises, not least the charming Zoya, who works at Yalta’s Chekhov Museum.With wry humour, philosophical seriousness and a ground-breaking narrative style, Solovyov and Larionov is a genre-defying historical detective novel that explores a fascinating period of Russian history.

A man wakes up in a hospital bed, with no idea of who he is or how he came to be there. The only information the doctor shares with his patient before urging him to write down every thought and feeling that comes to mind is the young man’s name: Innokenty Petrovich Platonov. As Innokenty starts to write, out pours a kaleidoscope of images, faces and events, weaving the story of a young man in Russia in the early twentieth century, through the turbulence of the Russian Revolution and its aftermath. As Innokenty begins to build a vivid picture of his former life, only one question remains: how is he able to remember the start of the twentieth century, when the pills by his bedside were made in 1999?

Евгений Водолазкин - прозаик, филолог. Автор. В России его называют "русским Умберто Эко", в Америке - после выхода "Лавра" на английском - "русским Маркесом". Ему же достаточно быть самим собой. Произведения Водолазкина переведены на многие иностранные языки. Новый роман лауреата премии "Большая книга", бестселлера "Лавр" и изящного historical fiction "Соловьев и Ларионов" Евгения Водолазкина "Авиатор" - яркое событие в литературе. Книга оценивается критиками как один самых ожидаемых русских романов 2016 года (по версии Forbes, Meduza и др.). Герой романа "Авиатор" - человек в состоянии tabula rasa: очнувшись однажды на больничной койке, он понимает, что не знает про себя ровным счётом ничего - ни своего имени, ни кто он такой, ни где находится. В надежде восстановить историю своей жизни, он начинает записывать посетившие его воспоминания, отрывочные и хаотичные: Петербург начала ХХ века, дачное детство в Сиверской и Алуште, гимназия и первая любовь, революция 1917-го, влюбленность в авиацию, Соловки… Но откуда он так точно помнит детали быта, фразы, запахи, звуки того времени, если на календаре - 1999 год?.. На передней стороне переплета рисунок Михаила Шемякина, созданный специально для этого издания.