Естественный отбор

The hero of this novel - a “hero of our time”, a man who has gone through the harsh school of life - after long wanderings returns home and finds himself face to face with a harsh and unpredictable reality for him, in a new country, so different from the old one. What is his homeland now? The writer answers this question by showing Russia in the 90s of the last century without embellishment, in which natural selection, alas, does not always occur, but to Darwin, because very often it is not the strongest who survive, but the meanest.

Using the example of many destinies, the threads of which are unexpectedly and intricately intertwined into a romance, the author gives a snapshot of society at the junction of times, in an era of reforms and upheavals. The writer shows a person’s struggle for faith, paints a broad historical canvas in which two forces collide: clans striving for power by hook or by crook, and respectable people striving to find their way in this life without violating the laws of goodness and justice.

Critics dubbed this novel an encyclopedia of Russian life in the first half of the 90s of the 20th century. The novel, among other awards, was awarded the “Best Bestseller” award by the Association of Book Publishers in 2004, as well as the “Literary Gazette” and the Russian State Library award as the best book of the year in the “Sharp Prose” category in 2005, and in 2006 it was published in Paris in French . Based on this work, an eight-part feature film was shot on Russian television.