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Erast Petrovich Fandorin ((ロシア語:Эраст Петрович Фандорин)) is a fictional 19th-century Russian detective and the hero of a series of Russian historical detective novels by Boris Akunin. The first Fandorin novel (The Winter Queen, rus. - Азазель) was published in Russia in 1998, and the latest and the last one was published in November 2012 (The Black City, rus. - Чёрный город).〔"Azerbaijan Informational Service"/>(Расул Мурсагулов, Азербайджанская информационная служба, "Эраст Фандорин «умер» в Баку – увидел свет последний роман Бориса Акунина из «фандоринского» цикла «Черный Город»" )〕 More than 15 million copies of Fandorin novels have been sold as of May 2006, even though the novels were freely available from many Russian web-sites and the hard-copies were relatively expensive by Russian standards.〔(Leon Aron, "''A Private Hero for a Privatized Country''" in ''Russian Outlook'' ), retrieved 17 August 2006.〕 New books in the Fandorin series typically sell over 200,000 copies in the first week alone,〔 with an unparalleled (for mystery novels) first edition of 50,000 copies for the first books to 500,000 copies for the last.〔(Early news of ''All the World's a Stage'' sales ), retrieved 18 March 2010.〕〔(Yulia Idlis, "''B. Akunin's Fandorin Saga: To Be Continued?''", Kultura 1, 2006, pp. 10-15 ), retrieved 23 September 2006 (PDF).〕 In Russia, the Fandorin series rivals ''The Lord of the Rings'' or ''Harry Potter'' in popularity.〔 The English translations of the novels have been critically acclaimed by, among others, Ruth Rendell.〔(Ruth Rendell, ''Fiction: The Winter Queen by Boris Akunin trans by Andrew Bromfield'', The Sunday Times, 12 May 2003 ), retrieved 26 September 2006.〕 ==Background== In the Soviet Union, detective novels enjoyed mass popularity. Although they were seen as a "low genre" by the communist officials, both local (such as Vayner brothers and Julian Semenov), and foreign detective novels have always been avidly coveted.〔(Sofya Khagi, Toronto Slavic Quarterly, "''Boris Akunin and Retro Mode in Contemporary Russian Culture''" ), retrieved 11 September 2006.〕〔(San Francisco Chronicle, "''Russian writer is onto a rare thing -- a series of good detective novels''" ), retrieved 17 August 2006.〕 After the collapse of the Soviet Union, many trashy detective novels were published that featured a lot of gore and sex.〔(Steven Lee Myers, New York Times, "A Russian intellectual turns to crime (fiction)" ), retrieved 11 September 2006.〕 Akunin's wife, in common with many other Russians,〔(Vsevolod Brodsky, Context, Letter from Russia ), retrieved 11 September 2006.〕 started to enjoy reading this genre of literature. However, she did not want to be seen reading the novels and she always wrapped them in brown paper to prevent people from seeing what she was reading.〔〔(Telegraph, "''The masked man''" ), retrieved 17 August 2006〕〔(Richard Lourie, New York Times, "If Pushkin had written mysteries" ), retrieved 18 August 2006.〕 This inspired Akunin to create a detective novel which nobody would be ashamed to be caught reading,〔 something between the literature of Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky and the pulp of modern Russian detective novels.〔(The Independent, "Boris Akunin: The riddler of Russia" ), retrieved 29 August 2006〕 He set out to write a cycle about Fandorin with an exploration of every subgenre of the detective novel in mind, from spies to serial killers.〔 In addition, he wanted to address different types of human character in his books. As Akunin identified sixteen subgenres of crime novels, as well as sixteen character types, the novels in the Erast Fandorin series will ultimately number sixteen. As of December 2009, thirteen novels have been published in Russia. The series is titled ' (''New detective'', or ''New Mystery''). This title serves to set the novels apart from the postmodernist intellectual novels as well as from the trashy detective novels,〔 but it is also a subtle play on the use of time in the novels.〔 Akunin uses many historical settings for his novels. He uses the war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire as background for the novel ''The Turkish Gambit''; the death of the "White General" Mikhail Skobelev (as 'Mikhail Sobolev') in ''The Death of Achilles''; and the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II and the Khodynka Tragedy for ''Coronation, or the Last of the Romanovs''. Akunin uses the gaps in the knowledge of these histories to create an atmosphere for his mystery novels to which readers can relate.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Erast Fandorin」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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