Евгений Водолазкин - Solovyov and Larionov

Shortlisted for the Russian Booker Prize

Shortlisted for the National Big Book Award

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.

‘Vodolazkin’s grip on this narrative is iron-tight… We should expect nothing less from an author whose previous novel, Laurus , was a barnstorming thriller about medieval virtue.’

A Oneworld Book

First published in North America, Great Britain and Australia by Oneworld Publications 2018

This ebook published 2018

Originally published in Russian as Соловьев и Ларионов

by AST, Eleny Shubinoi imprint

The publication of the book was negotiated through Banke, Goumen & Smirnova Literary Agency ( www.bgs-agency.com)

Copyright © Eugene Vodolazkin, 2009

English translation copyright © Lisa C. Hayden, 2018

The moral right of Eugene Vodolazkin to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved

Copyright under Berne Convention

A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-78607-035-7

ISBN 978-1-78607-036-4 (ebook)

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

This publication was effected under the auspices of the Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation

TRANSCRIPT Programme to Support Translations of Russian Literature

Published with the support of the Institute for Literary Translation (Russia)

Typeset by Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Falkirk, Stirlingshire Oneworld Publications

10 Bloomsbury Street

London WC1B 3SR

England

Books have their own destinies (Latin).

‘Doctor, I am dying.’ (German)

Enough for the wise (Lat.).