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The protagonist of A Flame Out at Sea heads to the stores of the northern lakes and the White Sea in search of its present, which unexpectedly proves to be inseparable from its recent past. Against the backdrop of the powerful northern elements, the drama of a single individual in the here and now begins to seem tiny and insignificant but the tragedy of the nation irredeemably large. "The novel is a confession, a travelogue and a doorway into a great historical era."
A Flame Out at Sea is about going beyond the boundaries of the big city, about overcoming the fetters of one’s private and family past, leaving aside one’s resentment, squashing one’s pride, unclenching one’s fists and turning one’s life around. It is about a journey to the origins of speech, personality, courage and love made by a modern man in the harsh, sacred, nourishing and draining circumstances of the Russian North. (Valeria Pustovaya, Literary critic)
Translated from the Russian by Christopher Culver.
Published with support of the Russian Booker Foundation.
Sponsored by GLOBEXBANK.
Publishers Maxim Hodak & Max Mendor.
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The life of Dmitry Novikov (born 1966) has been one full of unexpected turns. He studied medicine at the University of Petrozavodsk, served in the Northern Fleet, worked as a hospital orderly and porter, and ran his own business. He made his debut as a writer of prose on the internet and was recognized by the online literary competition Art-Lito (2000). In Saint-Petersburg his first two story collections were published, The Karelian Isthmus Tango (2001) and A Fly in Amber (2003). His novel A Flame Out at Sea appeared in 2016; it was recognized by a number of literary prizes, including the Russian Booker (2017). His books have been translated into English, Norwegian, Finnish and Armenian.
Novikov currently lives near Petrozavodsk in a homestead that he built himself, amidst the beautiful Karelian nature, where his nearest neighbors are swans and bears. At present he is writing a new book and often plays host to creative figures from around the world. "Living on the border between civilization and the untamed forest is a wonderful opportunity for full-on happiness that the internet era gives us."
The characters in Novikov's work are predominantly people of the Russian North: Pomors, Karelians and Komi. In 2013 Novikov, along with other Karelian writers, proclaimed the Manifesto on a New Northern Prose, the mission of which Novikov described as: "Though these are trying times for Russian literature, there is light, there is hope that it will retain its key underlying principles of honesty, faith, beauty. How great it is that these principles fully fit with and correspond to the old and new, living, and strong direction of Russia's Northern Prose!"
