The life of Dmitry Novikov (born 1966) has been one full of unexpected turns. He studied medicine at the University of Petrozavodsk, served in the Northern Fleet, worked as a hospital orderly and porter, and ran his own business. He made his debut as a writer of prose on the internet and was recognized by the online literary competition Art-Lito (2000). In Saint-Petersburg his first two story collections were published, The Karelian Isthmus Tango (2001) and A Fly in Amber (2003). His novel A Flame Out at Sea appeared in 2016; it was recognized by a number of literary prizes, including the Russian Booker (2017). His books have been translated into English, Norwegian, Finnish and Armenian. Novikov currently lives near Petrozavodsk in a homestead that he built himself, amidst the beautiful Karelian nature, where his nearest neighbors are swans and bears. At present he is writing a new book and often plays host to creative figures from around the world. "Living on the border between civilization and the untamed forest is a wonderful opportunity for full-on happiness that the internet era gives us." The characters in Novikov's work are predominantly people of the Russian North: Pomors, Karelians and Komi. In 2013 Novikov, along with other Karelian writers, proclaimed the Manifesto on a New Northern Prose, the mission of which Novikov described as: "Though these are trying times for Russian literature, there is light, there is hope that it will retain its key underlying principles of honesty, faith, beauty. How great it is that these principles fully fit with and correspond to the old and new, living, and strong direction of Russia's Northern Prose!"
