Crystal in a Transparent Frame: Stories about Water and Stones

Vasily Avchenko — a writer and journalist, lives in Vladivostok. Author of the biography of writer Oleg Kuvaev (together with philologist Alexey Korovashko), the books "Far East: the Hieroglyph of Space", "Red Sky. True Stories about Land, Fire, and a Flying Human" and others. Twice a finalist for the literary prizes "Big Book" and "National Bestseller".

"Crystal in a Transparent Frame" — a unique, almost artistic yet full of amazing facts description of life in the Far East.

"I am just a human being living by the sea. Almost any of my fellow countrymen knows much more about fish, the sea, and stones than I do. But none of them writes about what I would like to read. Both the fish and the stones are silent. Therefore, it falls to me to speak."
Vasily Avchenko

"An author who has raised journalism to the level of magnificent artistic prose. His documentary novel, devoted to seemingly specific regional problems, is written in such a way that these very problems and aspects of life unexpectedly resonate with our experiences, our thoughts, and most importantly — reveal some unseen, hidden sides of ourselves."
Andrei Astvatsaturov

3 reasons to buy this book

1. Reading the book "Crystal in a Transparent Frame" is like listening to the stories of a very skilled storyteller. Avchenko captivates with the simplicity of narration and excellent sense of humor. This is a view of events and facts from the life of the Far East through the prism of a person for whom this region has become native. The book is easy to dissect into quotes and aphorisms; almost every page will have either an exact thought or a subtle joke. 2. The author himself characterizes the genre of the book as "enthusiastic amateurism," asserting that everything narrated is merely his opinion. However, in each chapter, Avchenko quotes famous authors whose names and fates are connected with the Far East — from Mikhail Prishvin to Oleg Kuvaev, from Alexander Fadeev to Ilya Lagutenko. 3. Vasily Avchenko is a singer of the Far East, where the near abroad is not Kazakhstan or Belarus, but Korea and China. This book is a rare non-Eurocentric perspective on the world, life values, and the Russian language in contemporary Russian prose.