Solovyov and Larionov

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.

Eugene Vodolazkin was born in Kiev and has worked in the department of Old Russian Literature at Pushkin House, St. Petersburg, since 1990. His second novel, Laurus, won the National Big Book Award and the Yasnaya Polyana Award and was shortlisted for the National Bestseller Prize and the Russian Booker Prize. He lives with his family in St Petersburg, Russia.Lisa C. Hayden is a literary translator whose translations from the Russian include Vladislav Otroshenko’s Addendum to a Photo Album and Marina Stepnova’s The Women of Lazarus. Her website, Lizok’s Bookshelf, focuses on contemporary Russian fiction. She lives in Scarborough, Maine.