ДухLеss

“Dukhless” — the title is an invented half-Russian, half-English term that loosely translates as “soulless” — told the story of a cynical executive at a large multinational corporation, who has an easy-going, highly paid job, and an active free life mainly consisting of drugs and random one-time sexual relationships. Written by Sergey Minaev in a plain and rather clumsy style, it was dismissed by many critics as trash. But after hearing that it had sold in Russia more than 500,000 copies within nine months of its release, many began to discuss the “Dukhless” phenomenon. The reference to the movie could be “99 Francs” written by Frederic Beigbeder. “Sergei Minaev … has written two novels, first published on the Web, that have now sold nearly a million copies in book form, almost unheard of in post-Soviet Russia for anything but mysteries” – New York Times, 12.27.2007