Rachel

About Andrei Gelasimov

Born in Irkutsk in 1965, Andrei Gelasimov studied foreign languages at Yakutsk State University and directing at Moscow Theater Institute. He became an overnight literary sensation in Russia in 2001 when his story A Tender Age, which he published on the Internet, was awarded a prize for the best debut. It went on to garner the Apollon Grigorev and Belkin Prizes, and his novels have regularly enjoyed critical and popular success in Russia and throughout Europe. This is his fourth novel to be published in English, following Thirst, The Lying Year, and Gods of the Steppe, winner of Russia’s National Bestseller Prize in 2009 and praised by Bookslut as “a very rich, good book.” Gelasimov adapted Thirst for the screen, and the film, directed by Dmitriy Tyurin, won first prize in the Moscow Premiere Screenings at the Moscow International Film Festival and the Jury Prize at the Sochi Open Russian Film Festival.