- Sister Pelagia
Sister Pelagia is the heroine of a trilogy of
mystery novel s byBoris Akunin .Sister Pelagia is a
Russian Orthodox nun , acting as a girls' school teacher in the fictionalguberniya of Zavolzhsk, a town on the banks of theVolga inImperial Russia . No dates are given, but references to "Sherlock Holmes ", "The Kreutzer Sonata ", theOlympics andMarie Curie make it clear that the action is set in the late 1890s or in the early 1900s.Sister Pelagia has an exceptional talent for deduction and acts under the orders of
Bishop Mitrofanii of Zavolzhsk. The Bishop possesses a father-daughter relationship with Pelagia, which causes the two to often argue in a good natured manner. The Crown Prosecutor, an Orthodox convert fromJudaism named Matvei Berdichevsky, is among the few who are completely aware of Pelagia's abilities. As is the Imperial Governor of Zavolzhsk, aGerman emigre namedBaron Anton von Haggenau. With under the guidance of Bishop Mitrofanii and his associates, she investigates a number of mysterious cases.The first novel, "Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog" (Пелагия и белый бульдог) is set in Zavolzhsk and the surrounding countryside. It centers around the arrival from
St. Petersburg of an Inquisitor from theHoly Synod and the great evils that follow. It was published in English in 2006 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson with ISBN 0-297-84862-3.In the second novel, "Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk" (Пелагия и черный монах), Pelagia investigates strange events in a remote island monastery in Mitrofanii's
diocese (on the islands in the fictitious Blue Lake). The plot contains many allusions toUmberto Eco 'sThe Name of the Rose ,Anton Chekhov 'sBlack Monk , and several novels byDostoevsky . It was published in English in 2007 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson with ISBN 0-297-85086-5.In "Sister Pelagia and the Red Rooster" (Пелагия и красный петух), the action takes us from a steamboat on the
Volga to Stroganovka, a fictitious village near theUrals , and on toJerusalem , an earlyZionist commune in Megiddo and to Sodom. Events in Imperial Russia move toZhytomyr andSaint Petersburg .External links
*Full texts, in Russian, of [http://akunin.ru/knigi/pelagia/pelagia_i_belyi_buldog/ "Pelagia and the White Bulldog"] , [http://www.lib.ru/RUSS_DETEKTIW/BAKUNIN/chernyjmonah.txt "Pelagia and the Black Monk"] , and [http://www.lib.ru/RUSS_DETEKTIW/BAKUNIN/akunin27.txt "Pelagia and the Red Rooster"]
* [http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/excerpts/2007-01-29-pelagia-bulldog_x.htm Excerpt] in English from "Pelagia and the White Bulldog"
* [http://arts.independent.co.uk/books/reviews/article362614.ece Review] (negative) of "Pelagia and the White Bulldog"
* [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml;jsessionid=ES55TC5LRRWKBQFIQMFCFGGAVCBQYIV0?xml=/arts/2007/06/21/bogenre.xml Short review] of "Pelagia and the Black Monk"
* [http://homepage.ntlworld.com/philipg/detectives/sisterpelagia.html Pelagia bio] at Clerical Detectives
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