 He became a British citizen in 1988.Zinik was one of the first Russian authors of his generation who chose to depict the lives of his compatriots outside Russia.The ambiguities of émigré existence, cultural dislocation, estrangement and the evasive nature of memory have become not only the main topic of Zinik's prose, which includes novels, short stories, essays, lectures and radio broadcasts, but also his ‘literary device’.