Sister Pelagia is a fictional 19th century Russian nun, the protagonist of a three-book series of mystery novels by Boris Akunin.
The first novel, Pelagia and the White Bulldog (US title: Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog) (Пелагия и белый бульдог) is set in Zavolzhsk and the surrounding countryside. It centers around the arrival from St. Petersburg of an Inquisitor from the Holy Synod and the great evils that follow. It was published in English in 2006 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson with ISBN 0-297-84862-3.
In the second novel, Pelagia and the Black Monk (US title: Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk) (Пелагия и черный монах), Pelagia investigates strange events in a remote island monastery in Mitrofanii's diocese (on the islands in the fictional Blue Lake). The plot contains many allusions to Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, Anton Chekhov's Black Monk, and several novels by Dostoevsky. It was published in English in 2007 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson with ISBN 0-297-85086-5.
In Pelagia and the Red Rooster (US title: Sister Pelagia and the Red Cockerel) (Пелагия и красный петух), the action takes the reader from a steamboat on the Volga to Stroganovka, a fictional village near the Urals, and on to Jerusalem, an early Zionist commune in Megiddo and to Sodom. Events in Imperial Russia move to Zhytomyr and Saint Petersburg. The context is the flourishing millennialism and sectarianism in 19th century Imperial Russia.
References
- Harris, Michael (January 6, 2007). "A nun with a nose for adventure". The Los Angeles Times. p. 47. Retrieved 29 January 2024.
- "Nun has sleuth skills, feminist views". The Philadelphia Inquirer. May 25, 2008. p. H10. Retrieved 29 January 2024.
- Robshaw, Brandon (Nov 29, 2009). "Eye-popping stuff". The Independent. p. 142. Retrieved 29 January 2024.
External links
- Full texts, in Russian, of Pelagia and the White Bulldog, Pelagia and the Black Monk, and Pelagia and the Red Rooster
- Excerpt in English from Pelagia and the White Bulldog
- Short review of Pelagia and the Black Monk
- Pelagia bio at Clerical Detectives
| Works by Boris Akunin | |
|---|---|
| Erast Fandorin series |
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| Masahiro Shibata series |
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| Nicholas Fandorin series | |
| Sister Pelagia series | |
| Brüderschaft with Death series | |
| The Genres |
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| Adaptations |
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- Fictional Russian detectives
- Fictional Russian people in literature
- Fictional amateur detectives
- Fictional historical detectives
- Novel series by featured character
- Novels by Boris Akunin
- Fictional Christian nuns
- Characters in Russian novels of the 21st century
- Clerical mysteries
- Fictional female amateur detectives