Anna Matveeva

Pereval Dyatlova ili Taina devyati	The Dyatlov Pass Novel. AST Publishers. Moscow 2005. 313 pages

Foreign rights: Czech Republic/ Akropolis, China/ Inner Mongolia University, France/ Editis, Latvia/ Latvijas Mediji, Poland/ Kobiece

Matveeva’s novel is dedicated to the true story of a group of young students who died under mysterious circumstances as ski tourists on the Dyatlov Pass in the northern Ural mountains in 1959. The exact circumstances of the mysterious deaths on Dyatlov Pass remain unexplained to this day. Following on from the series of earlier books on the subject, Matveeva’s novel is the first attempt to see the story of Dyatlov Pass, comprising documented facts on the one hand and largely probable, albeit mysterious interpretations on the other, as an overall phenomenon in which the fates of victims and the investigators have become linked in fiction. Accompanying Matveeva’s heroine on her quest for the truth, therefore, the reader returns not only to a brutal past but is also drawn into discovering the truth behind his/her own life.

In 2000, a regional Ural TV company produced a documentary film about the mystery of Dyatlov Pass. Cooperating with the film crew, Anna Matveeva published her short novel of the same name, a large part of the book including broad quotations from the official case, diaries of victims, interviews with searchers and other documentaries collected by the film-makers.

A Hollywood feature film has been released in 2013 with Renny Harlin as director (Nightmare on Elm Street 1988/ Die Hard 2 1990/ Cliffhanger 1993/ Deep Blue Sea 1999/ Exorzist Beginning 2004/ The Covenant 2006/ 5 Days of War 2011) and Richard Reid (Love, Wedding Marriage 2011/ William&Kate 2011/ Navy CIS/ Hangover) and Matt Stokoe (Hollow 2011/ Misfits 2009) in main roles.