Death Of The Author Smert’ Avtora Novel, 2007 232 pp Publishers: Gayatri-LiveBooks, Moscow Foreign rights: Goumen&Smirnov

London, December 1913. Alistair Mopper, popular author of Miroslav the Boyar, a vampire novel, is found dead in the underground. On his body police discover a note, saying: Farewell. You won’t see me anymore. M. Suicide is suspected, but the investigation reveals that Mopper’s death was caused by a heart attack, and the handwriting is not his.

The reader is invited to take up his own investigation and solve the riddle by restoring the events told, as in Bram Stoker’s famous Dracula, through letters, diaries, archives and newspaper clippings. The swiftly unfolding story centers around the mysterious figure of one Miroslav Eminovic, whom Alistair Mopper introduces to London’s high society and literary elite as the prototype of the main character of his scandalous bestseller, Miroslav the Boya, praised even by famous fellow-writers, including H.G. Wells, Somerset Maugham, and Virginia Woolf. Paparazzi of the beginning of the 20th century, as well as gushing young female fans, are determined to reveal the truth – why Mopper would choose the plain Balkan partisan-turned-tailor to pose as the infernal hero from his book. Some succeed in discovering more than just Miroslav’s bad manners or dubious sense of humour. The truth terrifies more than the trite stunts of the eerie Gothic protagonist, and this time the evil is real.

Read as a suspenseful thriller, an atmospheric mystery, a thoroughly researched, historically accurate text, or an appealing sexually-charged romance, Death of the Author is not simply another spin-off of the Dracula story. This ambitious debut novel excites readers as an artfully constructed literary game, unscrupulously shaking up the cultural and social cliches of the Western world, and serving as a cautionary tale on the complex relations between an author and his/her protagonist.

Reviews:
«A combination of a good fib, with a very good fib; light, confident writing, and a cool, salon wit that keeps the author from crossing the boundary where a text becomes a slapstick amateurish skit that offers humour to club members – this is what makes DEATH OF THE AUTHOR. It’s difficult to imagine a literary critic who does not have a standard set of phrases, such as: “this is apparently one of the best debut novels of the recent past.” Yet sooner or later, you realize that you use the key combination much too often and decide not to appeal to it ever again. It seems, though, that the case of Maria Eliferova – a young girl just past 20 who can so easily stagger readers with her fiction – is exactly the case that justifies taking up the old habit». Lev Danilkin, Afisha

«Fiction flows into reality here to become a “belles-lettres document”. The narrative rhythm, the kaleidoscope of events, facts, and characters make this literary achievement a gripping thriller».Echo of Moscow

«The author of DEATH OF THE AUTHOR uses her outstanding writing skills to populate the text with a dozen different and accurately rendered voices <….> like Somerset Maugham, Virginia Woolf and H.G. Wells. The paraphrase of Stoker’s bestseller becomes a key to three main plot lines – that of a linguistic pastiche, a romance, and a detective. Yet behind these three wonderfully conceived and intricately woven stories that make up the plot, there is a fourth plane: the account of the relationship between the author and the hero. To pack complicated intellectual messages under the cover of light reading is not a new tradition, yet Eliferova does this with exemplary grace and charm». Expert

«The sensation of the year. A must-read. Read it in one gulp or sip it – the delight is guaranteed». Slovo

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