Evgeny Chizhov — novelist, twice finalist of the "Big Book", winner of the "Crown" award of the Moscow Writers' Union ('Translated from the subscript'), finalist of the Andrei Bely Award and the NOSE Award and winner of Yasnaya Polyana (The Collector of Paradise.In the novel "The Dark Past of a Man of the Future", combining the lightness of an action-packed narrative with the techniques of modernist literature, the author describes the relationship of a "little man" with a Great Style and a Great History, in particular, with the history of the stormy Moscow events of October 1993. The central character of the novel works as an operator of the opera theater stage. A new phantom of the opera, he infects everything around with his phantom, depriving things of gravity, and life of authenticity.'Even now, when there is something to compare, “The Dark Past...” is the best novel about the early nineties. Chizhov paints the late autumn of the empire, broadcasts a strange bitter orange aftertaste of the Soviet era. The catastrophe of the early nineties for him is a fun, farcical time: dangerous, of course, but maybe it will somehow work out.'Lev Danilkin'The author's persistence in pursuing the main character, constantly disappearing from sight, is fully shared by the reader. In a word, the thing is smart.'Anatoly Naiman