For the first time in Russian - a debut novel that received (based on the manuscript) the "Asian Booker", the Palanca Prize (the highest literary award of the Philippines) and the Hugh MacLennan Award (the highest literary award of Quebec), and was a finalist for the Grand Prix du Livre de Montreal ( Canada), Prix Jan Michalski (Switzerland), Prix Courrier International (France) and the British Commonwealth Prize, as well as being included in the list of the best books of the year, according to the New York Times. On a clear winter day, the body of Crispin Salvador is fished out of the Hudson - a once famous Filipino writer who long ago moved to New York, a constant figure in love, political and literary scandals. What is it - an accident, murder or suicide? It is known that he worked for many years on the novel “Burnt Bridges,” designed to restore him to his former glory, expose corrupt politicians and unprincipled oligarchs, and settle scores with his many enemies. But the manuscript disappeared. And Miguel, Crispin’s student and his last friend, decides to find her at all costs, piecing Crispin’s life together like a puzzle from his books, interviews and memories. And gradually there is a feeling that the author’s biography, with the inevitable skeletons in the closets, is a metaphor for the life of an entire country, where elections can be stolen and popular protests can be merged, where the president, in order to maintain power, is ready to stage a terrorist threat, and religious leaders are poorly distinguishable from criminal authorities …