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Larionov. A general of the Imperial Russian Army who mysteriously avoided execution by the Bolsheviks when they swept to power and went on to live a long life in Yalta, leaving behind a vast heritage of memoirs.

Solovyov. The young history student who travels to Crimea, determined to find out how Larionov evaded capture after the 1917 revolution.

With wry humor, Eugene Vodolazkin, one of Russia's foremost contemporary writers, takes listeners on a fascinating journey through a momentous period of Russian history, interweaving the intriguing story of two men from very different backgrounds that ultimately asks whether we can really understand the present without first understanding the past.

Eugene Vodolazkin was born in Kiev and has worked in the department of old Russian literature at Pushkin House since 1990. He is an expert in medieval Russian history and folklore. His debut novel, Solovyov and Larionov, was shortlisted for Russia's National Big Book Award and the Andrei Bely Prize. Laurus, his second novel but the first to be translated into English, won the National Big Book Award and the Yasnaya Polyana Award, was shortlisted for the National Bestseller Prize, the Russian Booker Prize, and the New Literature Award, and has been translated into eighteen languages. His third novel, The Aviator, was also shortlisted for the Russian Booker Prize and the Big Book Award.

Lisa Hayden is a freelance translator and editor. Her translation of Eugene Vodolazkin's Laurus won the Read Russia Prize for Contemporary Literature in 2016 and was shortlisted for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize the same year. She lives in Maine.