Nicolai Lilin

NICOLAI LILIN was born in 1981 and grew up in the small Soviet republic of Transnistria, which declared its independence from the Russian federation in 1991, although Russia has never recognized this. As a young adult, Nicolai was conscripted into the Russian army and sent to fight in Chechnya. He later became a fisherman off the coast of Ireland, before moving to Italy where he currently runs a tattoo parlour in Turin. Siberian Education is his first book.