The Wind of Troy

Andrey Dmitriev is a prose writer and screenwriter; author of books “This Shore,” “The Closed Book,” “The River’s Turn,” “The Road Back,” “The Peasant and the Teenager.” He is a laureate of the “Russian Booker” and “Yasnaya Polyana” prizes, and a finalist of “The Big Book.” The novel “The Wind of Troy” is about elusive happiness and love that can be a goal but doesn’t solve anything; it’s a story of a man with streaks of copper-gray hair, rare charm, and intelligence. The narration is told on behalf of his friends and admirers from different corners of the world.

September 2020. In Istanbul’s airport, after forty years, two people meet. Traveling around Turkey by car—Troy, Pamukkale, Laodicea, Bahçedere—they recognize each other anew, feel jealousy, recall the past, and dream of a new future life… The magic of Andrey Dmitriev’s prose lies in how he describes the earthly world: in detail, beautifully, and precisely. And reading descriptions like how wind caresses a cheek, wine intoxicates, the red sun pushes back the night—that’s a pleasure. But this world will have to be left. “The Wind of Troy” is a novel about the inevitability of the end of a life, balanced by a boundless and so gentle beauty for the human. Maya Kucherskaya