Physically unattractive, lanky Sonechka with her skinny legs and flat bum, has for defensive reasons been a bookworm since the age of seven. Only when she is twenty-seven is she discovered, working in the basement of a Siberian library by artist Robert Victorvich who, already internationally renowned, returned to Russia in the early 1930's only to be exiled to the labour camps. When in Robert's old age a new romance invades their marriage, Sonechka reveals unexpected reserves of womanly strength.Sonechka is a novel whose unconventional and understated heroine will delight the English-speaking world. Sonechka was short-listed for the Booker Russian Novel Prize and has been enthusiastically received in French, German, and Italian translations. It has been awarded the Medici Prize for foreign fiction in France and the Penne Prize in Italy.