Mikhail Elizarov is a novelist, musician, and author of the novels “Earth” (National Bestseller Award), “The Librarian” (Russian Booker Award), “Pasternak” and “Cartoons,” and the collections “Nails” (shortlisted for the Andrei Bely Prize) and “Cubes.”

“Elizarov is his own direction, his own criteria for evaluation, his own god, his own king, and his own hero. He is emphatically paradoxical and aggressively provocative. His lyrical hero is impudent, handsome, a bodybuilder, but at the same time helpless and defenseless, like a child. From brutality to tenderness, he has only one step, which he constantly takes, and therefore he is constantly “led and contorted,” in the words of N.S. Leskov. Each story in the collection is good in its own way. They are about love, betrayal, loneliness, travel, and hopeless experience.” 'a fight with a world that will defeat you anyway.' (Pavel Basinsky)

'My appearance hasn't really changed for the last seventeen years. Ever since that September, when I was shown my militant 'kin,' the special forces of the looking glass, I've only worn black. In memory of that meeting. The last thing I'd want to look like is the costumed samurai from The Magnificent Seven, a peasant with a stolen pedigree, armor from someone else's shoulders. However, he had the heart to die with dignity. I'm not sure about my heart yet…'