[Eric]

Thanks, GreenDoor for the reviews and details about Ivanov, Bykov and Glukhovsky. The Human & Smirnov agent's website is also informative.

One major problem, when trying to find out about translations from Russian, is transliteration. I can read a few languages, but names are transliterated differently into every one. So you can find, for instance, Alexei Ivanov and Aleksej Ivanov, Dmitry Bykov and Dmitri Bykov, and Dmitry Gluchovsky, Glukhovsky, Gluhovsky...

I found a Belgian review of the Ivanov. Whether I'll get on with the drink and nymphets, remains to be seen. I won't know till I find the translation in the bookshop. But the fact that they have taken all the pith out of the Dutch title is ominous. In Dutch, it is called De man die zijn wereld opdronk, i.e. The Man Who Drank Up His World, which does not have the same feel as the Russian, French and English titles.