We are all prisoners of the ideas of the times we live in.

It's very important to listen when someone is speaking up. I always keep my ear to the ground.

I have always grappled with the fact that the truth cannot be packaged into one soul or one mind alone. It is something fragmented: there is so much to it; the truth is varied and scattered across the world.

I name the genre that I write in as 'novel of voices.'

My wish is to humanize history.

All of history misses out on the history of the soul. Human passions are so often not included in history.

Real people speak in my books about the main events of the age, such as the war, the Chernobyl disaster, and the downfall of a great empire.

For money, I can buy one thing: I buy freedom.

I take a very long time to write my books - from five to ten years.

I love the good Russian world, the humanitarian Russian world, but I do not love the Russian world of Beria, Stalin, and Shoigu.