Zâtul

Zâtul tells of young Benedikt in Moscow after the world ends. The city has slipped into a new Stone Age. The state holds total power through fear and red tape. Benedikt works as a scribe. He copies texts that name the dictator as their author. Only this ruler may write books or read the classics. The state views those works as a threat to ordinary people.

Benedikt loves to read, but his need for books turns deadly. He kills to get more to read and a better life. He weds the daughter of a high-ranking state official. This helps him rise in the world. He seeks his true self amid harsh struggles to stay alive.

Tatiana Tolstaia blends Russian fairy tales with dark, comic fiction. The novel shows how rulers use art to gain wealth and power. It asks what books can give when people have little freedom. It also asks what people will give up for art. Readers must weigh these questions for themselves.

Tolstaia was born in 1951 in Leningrad, now St Petersburg. She came from a family of writers. They included Lev and Aleksei Nikolaevici Tolstoi. She studied classical languages at St Petersburg State University. She then worked in the book trade in Moscow. She began to publish short stories in the mid-1980s. Late that decade, she moved to the United States. She taught at several universities for ten years. She then went back to Russia. She also wrote sharp essays on modern Russian life. She later helped host a talk show on culture and politics. Her work appeared in The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books.