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WORK TITLE: LOST BELIEVERS
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WEBSITE: http://www.irinazhorov.com/
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COUNTRY: United States
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PERSONAL
Born in Uzbekistan, Soviet Union; immigrated to United States, ca. 1991.
EDUCATION:Holds degree in geology; University of Wyoming, M.F.A.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Journalist, writer. Journalist for ten-plus years.
WRITINGS
Contributor to periodicals.
SIDELIGHTS
[open new]Irina Zhorov is a journalist specializing in environmental issues as well as a novelist. She was born in what was then the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, now Uzbekistan, and immigrated to America as the Soviet Union collapsed. She lived in Philadelphia and earned a college degree in geology before shifting her focus to writing. A master of fine arts degree from the University of Wyoming led into a decade-long career as a journalist and the publication of her debut novel, Lost Believers.
Set in 1970s Siberia, Lost Believers follows two women whose lives change dramatically upon their meeting. Agafia is a thirtysomething woman from a sect of Old Believers who retreated to remote wilderness to escape persecution. Galina is a geologist from Moscow who descends on Siberia by helicopter to help chart the development of a new iron mine. While Galina, bristling at patriarchy as of late, finds solace in pilot Snow Crane, Agafia has known no one but her father and siblings for years, with a vision of Peter the Great her closest companion. As the chagrined Galina’s professional efforts contribute to the threatening of Agafia’s way of life–and her family members’ lives–Snow Crane promises to escort Agafia toward a monastery of Old Believer nuns.
A Publishers Weekly reviewer affirmed that “through artful juxtaposition and exquisite descriptions,” Zhorov aptly “illuminates her characters’ political and spiritual legacies.” The reviewer noted that the “well-wrought themes of environmental devastation and rebellion will resonate” with readers. A Kirkus Reviews writer observed, “Like her characters, Zhorov has deep respect for the physical world, and she honors it with poetic language.” This reviewer commended Lost Believers as an “elegant, melancholy debut written in gorgeous prose.”[close new]
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, June 15, 2023, review of Lost Believers.
Publishers Weekly, May 15, 2023, review of Lost Believers, p. 101.
ONLINE
Irina Zhorov website, http://www.irinazhorov.com (August 12, 2023).
No bio
Irina Zhorov was born in Uzbekistan, in the Soviet Union, and moved to Philadelphia on the eve of its dissolution. After failing to make use of a geology degree she received an MFA from the University of Wyoming. She’s worked as a journalist for more than a decade, reporting primarily on environmental issues.
Lost Believers
Irina Zhorov. Scribner, $28 (320p) ISBN 978-1-66801-153-9
Zhorov's lyrical debut portrays two worlds colliding in the U.S.S.R. of the 1970s. Galina is a Moscow-dwelling geologist on a mission to remote Siberia. There she meets Agafia, whose homestead is the only mark of civilization in the vast forest. Agafia is an Old Believer, born in Siberia after her parents fled Stalin's persecution. Her contact with Galina comes after years of seeing no one except her father and two older siblings; their mother died years earlier, and Agafia's closest confidant is an apparition of Peter the Great. The narrative skips between the two women's points of views and delves into their back stories, showing how Galina has chafed against the Soviet bureaucracy as well as her father's pressure to marry. In Siberia, she finds comfort in a loving relationship with her pilot, a former labor camp inmate nicknamed Snow Crane, and undergoes what Snow Crane dubs her "first crisis of the soul," despairing at her collusion in a mining operation that will threaten Agafia's home. Meanwhile, after Agafia learns of a monastery of Old Believers, Snow Crane agrees to take her there. Through artful juxtaposition and exquisite descriptions of this seemingly static world, Zhorov illuminates her characters' political and spiritual legacies. Zhorov's well-wrought themes of environmental devastation and rebellion will resonate with readers. Agent: Anna Stein, ICM Partners. (Aug.)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"Lost Believers." Publishers Weekly, vol. 270, no. 20, 15 May 2023, p. 101. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A752767929/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=f0859cdc. Accessed 17 July 2023.
Zhorov, Irina LOST BELIEVERS Scribner (Fiction None) $28.00 8, 1 ISBN: 9781668011539
In the 1970s Soviet Union, an isolated family is disturbed by industrialization.
The Kol family has lived alone in southern Siberia for decades. They belong to an ultratraditional sect of Christianity known as the Old Believers, and persecution by the Russian Orthodox Church and the Soviets has driven them into the wilderness. Agafia, now in her 30s, has never met anyone outside her family, though she's sometimes visited by visions of Peter the Great. The Kols' isolation ends when a helicopter delivers Galina, a successful geologist, and her pilot, Snow Crane, who are surveying the area for a new iron mine. Over the course of a few months, Galina falls in love with Snow Crane and with the Russian landscape the proposed iron mine would inevitably destroy. Worse, Agafia's siblings soon die from a disease the geologists may have brought with them. "First the germs, then the mine," Galina muses. "By the time we're done here, we'll kill off everything in the taiga." That winter, Galina and Snow Crane return to Moscow while Agafia is drawn deeper into the real world, meeting a hunter and a monastery of Old Believer nuns. Like her characters, Zhorov has deep respect for the physical world, and she honors it with poetic language. Here's how she describes Snow Crane preparing to summit Mount Elbrus, Russia's highest peak: "Snow Crane laid his head on the ground. Deep below the grass and granite, he heard the slow churning of melted lava, the sleeping volcano's gentle snores." The novel is inspired by the real story of Agafia Lykov, an Old Believer who grew up in isolation and is nearing 80 years old.
An elegant, melancholy debut written in gorgeous prose.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"Zhorov, Irina: LOST BELIEVERS." Kirkus Reviews, 15 June 2023, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A752722805/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=6ecea00b. Accessed 17 July 2023.