Abstract: The article analyses the image of the Chinese fox-werewolf, huli-jing, and other werewolves in the context of the Russian-Chinese cultural space created in Anna Starobinets' novel "Fox Fords". It also compares the images of the heroes of this work with other variants of the images of Chinese werewolves in Russian literature in terms of the depth and nature of their Russification. In addition, the study notes that the artistic reality of Anna Starobinets' novel is based on the principles of werewolfism and zoomorphisation. These principles are projected onto various components of the text primarily through animal comparisons and metaphors. They refer to people, natural objects, objects and abstract phenomena. Animalistic and plant motifs are manifested in the portraits and names of characters, in toponymic nomination, in landscapes, and in the language of the work. The principles of werewolfism and zoomorphisation influence the artistic time and space in "Fox Fords", which in turn, along with other elements of the text, make it possible to reveal the multilayered nature of the characters and their moral essence. The relevance of the article is determined by the high interest of domestic literary studies in the research involving images created under the influence of different cultures. In addition, modern literary studies show an increased interest in borderline phenomena in the field of literary genres ("Fox Fords" is a novel belonging to "big" literature and at the same time to fiction). The novelty of the article is due to its understanding of werewolfism and zoomorphisation not only in the mystical and physical, biological sense, but also as metaphysical and philosophical phenomena capable of characterising various aspects of reality and revealing their true nature.

Abstract: The article analyzes the image of the Chinese werewolf fox, or Huli jing (Chinese: 狐狸精), in Victor Pelevin's novel «The Sacred Book of the Werewolf». The comparison of the main character of Pelevin's work with the images of Huli jing in classical Chinese texts is made. In the center of consideration is the nomination of the heroine, her appearance, habitat, the ability to turn around and impose a hassle, the nature of sexuality, lifestyle. It is established that the image of the werewolf fox in Pelevin is a synthetic image created on the basis of mainly two cultures – Chinese and Russian. At the same time, she was influenced by mystical, religious, cultural and literary Chinese traditions. The writer relies on the components of the image of the Huli jing, borrowed from Chinese books, but offers an expanded and reinterpreted version of them. Pelevin is primarily interested in the desire of the werewolf fox not for bodily, but for spiritual transformation, on the way to which his heroine, relying on eastern philosophy, studies the principles of her mind. The Huli jing of the «Sacred Book of the Werewolf» and the confusion that it induces act as a metaphor for reality as a whole (man, time, space, language, the outside world, etc.). The nature of reality, according to Pelevin's novel, is transformational at its core, and this feature of it is due to its illusory nature. The relevance of the article is determined by the high interest of domestic and foreign literary criticism in the work of Viktor Pelevin and comparative studies (in this case, affecting Russian and Chinese cultures). The novelty of the work is due to the expansion of the concept of werewolf in Pelevin's novel – from the bodily inversivity of the main character to the characteristics of various aspects of reality.