A novel written by a Japanese diplomat on the turbulent era just before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union was released in Russian bookstores in December.

Akio Kawato, a 54-year-old envoy at the Japanese Embassy in Moscow, wrote the novel, with the provisional English title "The Land Far Away," under the pen name Akira Kumano.

The novel, which he describes as a "contemporary 'Doctor Zhivago,' " tells the story of a Russian newspaper reporter during the social and political confusion that overwhelmed Russia in the time of perestroika and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Kawato was a diplomat at the embassy in Moscow for 10 years, starting when Russia was still part of the former Soviet Union.