Aviator

A new novel from the author of the bestseller "Laurus", winner of the "Big Book" and "Yasnaya Polyana" awards, and finalist of the "Russian Booker". The most anticipated Russian novel of 2016, according to Forbes and Meduza. The cover features a drawing by the iconic artist Mikhail Shemyakin, created especially for this book.

Evgeny Vodolazkin is a prose writer and philologist. Author of the bestseller "Laurus" and the elegant historical fiction "Solovyov and Larionov". In Russia, he is called "the Russian Umberto Eco", in America – after "Laurus" was published in English – "the Russian Marquez". He, however, is content to be himself. Vodolazkin's works have been translated into many foreign languages.
The protagonist of the new novel "Aviator" is a man in a state of tabula rasa: waking up one day in a hospital bed, he realizes that he knows absolutely nothing about himself – not his name, nor who he is, nor where he is. Hoping to reconstruct the history of his life, he begins to record the memories that visit him, fragmented and chaotic: St. Petersburg at the beginning of the 20th century, a dacha childhood in Siverskaya and Alushta, gymnasium and first love, the 1917 revolution, a passion for aviation, Solovki… But how does he remember the details of everyday life, phrases, smells, sounds of that time so precisely, if the calendar shows 1999?..

Quote:
"– What are you always writing?
– I describe objects, sensations. People. I write every day now, hoping to save them from oblivion.
– God's world is too vast to expect success here.
– You know, if everyone describes their own, albeit small, part of this world... Although why small, actually? There will always be someone whose view is broad enough.
– For example?
– For example, an aviator."

Reviews:
"Evgeny Vodolazkin accompanied the bestseller "Laurus" with the explanation "a non-historical novel". His new "Aviator", possessing features of genre literature, can similarly be called "non-fantastic", although the story told in it seems far from reality. Incredible events led to the protagonist Innokenty Platonov being disconnected from real life for many decades. Waking up in a hospital bed, he discovers that he remembers little about himself and, in an attempt to reconstruct his story, begins to record his memories-visions daily. They reflect details of everyday life, phrases, sensations – all that, it would seem, has no relation to grand history. Gradually, other "chroniclers" enter the narrative with their own temperament and style – this creates sharp drama and holds surprises for the reader."

Elena Shubina