Prix Médicis (1996, France)
Literature Prize Giuseppe Acerbi (1998, Italy)

Rights sold: Bulgaria - COLIBRI, Chile - LOM, China - KUN LUN, Beijing Publishing Group, Czech Republic - HUMANITARIAN TECHNOLOGIES, Croatia - SYSPRINT, Egypt - AL KARMA BOOKS, Estonia - TANAPAEV, France - GALLIMARD, Finland - SILTALA, Germany - VOLK UND WELT (LUCHTENHAND LUEBBE), The Netherlands - DE GEUS, Hungary - MAGVETO, Iran - WHALE, Israel - AM OVED, Italy - E/O, Japan - SCHIN ZHO SHA, Korea - GIMM-YOUNG, Latvia - Zvaigzne ABC, Lithuania - KYTOS KNYGOS, Norway - BAZAR, Poland - PHILIP WILSON, Portugal - CAMPO DAS LETRAS, CAVALO DE FERRO, Romania - HUMANITAS, Russia - EKSMO, AST, Serbia - PAIDEIA, Slovakia - VYDAVATELSTVO SSS, Spain - ANAGRAMA, Sweden - NORSTEDTS, Taiwan - LOCUS, Turkey - AD KITAPCILIK, USA - SCHOCKEN, Vietnam - NHANAM

The heroine, Sonechka, reveals a love and loyalty at once astounding in its generosity and grotesque in its pathos. Sonechka so loves her husband and their life together, that she accepts what many would find unthinkable. In her novel Ulitskaya covers the tumultuous terrain of relationships and love in 20th-century Russia. While some details are time- and place-specific, the characters' motives and feelings rise to the universal.

"Ulitskaya brilliantly evokes resilient characters, showing us the Russian soul as transformed throughout its complicated history." (Kirkus Review)