He also did many translations, including works by Franz Kafka, Stefan Zweig, Elias Canetti, Hermann Hesse, and Thomas Mann.
He does this by examining Milasevich's writings, done on candy wrappers, the only paper available to him after the Russian Revolution of 1917, and through various archival research.
[3] According to critic Neil Cornwell, Lines of Fate shows the influence of Thomas Mann and Hermann Hesse.
Lines of Fate won the Russian Booker Prize by beating out the contributions of much better known authors like Vladimir Makanin and Lyudmila Petrushevskaya.
His winning of the prize made him a recognized writer, making it easier to publish more of his works, including those he had written prior to Lines of Fate.