Arsen Revazov

In Loneliness-12, Joseph Mezenin, the hapless owner of a failing Moscow PR agency, teams up with his two best friends—a hot-headed go-getter, Matty Krasnov, and a mathematician turned high-tech consultant, Anton Epstein—to investigate the murder of a fourth friend, the Chemist, found decapitated in his own apartment, head missing. Not long after the murder, Joseph receives an advertising contract from an anonymous new client, FF, who pledges big money for each media placement of the words Deir el-Bahari, Calypsol, loneliness, and the number 222461215 but demands absolute nondisclosure. Unable to keep this momentous secret, Joseph reveals it to his friends and to his already-married girlfriend, Maria Zephori, precipitating further deaths, mysteries, and high-stakes encounters that take the group through Israel, Italy, Japan, and throughout Russia in search of the Chemist's murderers. As the friends unravel FF's keywords, they find themselves battling an international cult of the woman-pharaoh Hatshepsut to defeat which they must brave government bureaucracies, psychedelic rituals, historical puzzles, daring escapes, existential mysteries, love triangles, and the prospect of eternal loneliness.

Loneliness-12 became a bestseller in Russia and attracted praise and mentions from critics, journalists, bloggers, and publications—including The Moscow Times, Newsweek Russia, The Russian Gazette, Gazeta.ru, MK Boulevard, Vedomosti, Novaya Gazeta, Kommersant Business Gazette, Cosmopolitan, Glamour Magazine, Afisha Magazine, and others.

The politician and journalist Valeriya Novodvorskaya described Loneliness-12 as a "saga written in very good Russian prose masterfully laced with slang—a tale of four modern-day musketeers who venture through fire, water, and brass pipes, through perestroika, privatization, and wild capitalism, through jails and privations, through monastic cells and mystical afterworlds, through the Vatican, the Land of Israel, and the mansion of a mafia kingpin." Russian critic Lev Danilkin described it as "'Murakami plus'—plus Foucault's Pendulum, plus The Da Vinci Code, plus The Club Dumas, plus Naïve. Super., plus By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept. Plus Seven Years In Tibet, plus Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, plus In the Mood for Love, plus The Bourne Identity, plus The Ninth Gate." Between 2006 and 2013, Loneliness-12 was translated into several languages—including Italian, Polish, Hungarian, Czech, and German—and published internationally under various titles.

Revazov is credited with the idea of the "white ribbon," which became a symbol of dissent during the 2011–13 Russian protests, against the results of the 2011 Russian legislative election.

Revazov's literary career began in 1992, when he published a collection of poems in Jerusalem, Israel. Between 1992 and 1995, he published a series of Russian-language short stories in Israel. Revazov is also an occasional writer of short stories for Russian periodicals. In 2005, Revazov’s debut novel, Loneliness-12 (Odinochestvo-12), was published by Moscow-based Ad Marginem Press. The author dubbed it a “fusion thriller”—a blend of conspiracy thriller, mystery, adventure, travelogue, and postmodernist literary elements.

Arsen Revazov (born December 12, 1966) is an Israeli author, entrepreneur, and art-photographer.

Arsen Revazov was born in Moscow, USSR, on December 12, 1966. He subsequently emigrated to Israel, where he lived for several years before returning to Moscow. In 1990, he graduated from the Moscow State University of Medicine and Dentistry, and since 1991 he has worked in the advertising and high-tech industries. Since 2002, he has served as president and chairman of the board of directors of online advertising agency IMHO Vi.