Zakhar Prilepin

“Should you happen to dislike Zakhar Prilepin for any reason, then you can now console yourself with the thought that a person does not acquire literary talent as a reward for his or her other qualities, but for inexplicable reasons...: a bad person simply cannot have written something like that!... Wrong... Should you happen to be a great fan of Zakhar Prilepin, then you can take a deep breath now and make a little more room in your heart for he has written a truly serious book. Not a book with which he will “make Russian literary history”, but rather one with which he will retain a permanent place in it.” LITERATURNAYA GAZETA

“I had always had a great many reservations about what Zakhar Prilepin does. Until I bought and read this new novel THE MONASTERY. Then I thought: “He can do what he likes, surround himself with people who I find to be particularly unpleasant – none of that is of any importance anymore now that he has written a novel like this”. I am completely humbled by this book.” ROSSIISKAYA GAZETA

“THE MONASTERY is not about ideology, not about justification or accusation, it is not an instructive politicising text. The novel poses questions and is devoid of all intention to prescribe.” KM.RU

“Those used to seeing Prilepin solely as a nationalist Bolshevist platform and, accordingly, to expecting politicising statements on current affairs from him (irrespective of the emotions are involved), will be not disappointed but surprised. THE MONASTERY is a huge, considered and full-blooded novel.” ART 1, GALINA YUZEFOVICH

“A powerful novel both in its scope and its conception, much closer to a painting by Hieronymus Bosch than a Judgement Day icon.” SVOBODNAYA PRESSA

“Simply amazing, the power guiding the hand that wrote these 700 pages of text, there is so much intellect, beauty and authenticity in it: from the dialogue through to the descriptions of nature, from the details of the historical reconstruction through to the unusual, the composition straddling the boundary between fiction and non-fiction, from the parallels between patricide and the repellent “naked God” through to the cleverly staged dichotomies of some of the individual scenes.” AFISHA, LEV DANILKIN

Authors