Nominated for the Russian Booker Prize and Russia's National Bestseller Prize, and a bestseller on Russia’s equivalent of Amazon for a year.
Fyodor is a successful young architect, but far from the ideal father. He’s constantly embarrassed by his 14 year-old son, Vanya, born with Down’s Syndrome, and always relying on others, mainly his own parents, for help.
But when Vanya pulls a mystical painting from the wreckage of a fatal car crash, everything changes. What Vanya doesn’t know is that the model for the painting, ‘Petroleum Venus’, is his own mother, who abandoned him at birth. This is the first of a series of extraordinary coincidences that lead both father and son on a journey towards love, responsibility and acceptance – but tragedy is never far away.
Alexander Snegirev was born in 1980 in Moscow. He won Russia’s prestigious Debut Prize for his collected stories, Russian Rhymes (2005). His short novel How We Bombed America won the Crown Prize of the Writers’ Union in 2007. In 2009 Petroleum Venus was shortlisted for the National Bestseller Prize, nominated for the Russian Booker, and was on the bestsellers list on OZON.ru (the Russian equivalent of Amazon) for a year.
Also available as an eBook here.