Born in 1968 on the banks of the Volga in Kouibishev (now Samara), Dimitri Bortnikov see also profile in russian https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... (Дмитрий Бортников) began his medical studies before enlisting to the army for two years. He worked as a caretaker in a maternity ward, a dance instructor, private chef etc. His first novel, The Fritz Syndrome (Синдром Фрица), written in Russian, was published in 2002 and receives the Russian Booker Prize. In 2005, he published Svinobourg (СвиноБург). Arriving in France, he abandons his mother tongue to adopt French by publishing Furioso in 2008. The "Le repas de morts" in 2011 comes next, plus a translation from Slavic to French of the letters of Ivan the Terrible in 2012.