Vladimir Kurnosenko is formerly a resident of Chelyabinsk and now a resident of Pskov. His novel “Evpatiy” was nominated for the Russian Booker Prize (1997), and the story “Beautiful are the faces of the sleeping” was shortlisted for the Ivan Petrovich Belkin Prize (2004). “First as a surgeon, then as a writer, he understood a very simple truth, but inaccessible to many, many people: before you perform an operation on a patient, you yourself must feel human pain. And the task of the doctor and, together with the writer, is to help relieve pain and reduce human suffering” (Viktor Astafiev). The book “The Monk’s Wife” includes novellas and short stories by the writer, created recently. In the story “Quiet Light,” “drawing four destinies, four characters, four experiences of joining the faith, Kurnosenko was able to talk about what deep Russia is. With her dreary past, with her “perestroika” hopes (and at the same time the “new” rudeness gaining strength), with her foggy future. There is no trace of sweetness or didacticism. Confusion, pain, hope, foolish (but so understandable) intellectual-neophyte enthusiasm, deprivation of the village old women, lack of will scattered in the air. And in the finale, when it’s already so sad that there seems to be nowhere else to go, there’s a story of a miracle. Strange and simple, like all miracles”, “the quiet, soulful voice of a subtle, conscientious and humane prose writer” (Andrey Nemzer).