The paper investigates the death motif in the novel «Dreams of Flaubert» by the contemporary
Primorye writer Alexander Belykh, first published in 2003. The author is well-known for his
translations from Japanese, specifically for his translations of Yukio Mishima’s novels «Thirst for
Love» (Moscow, 2011) and «The Sound of Waves» (Moscow, 2011), as well as translations of
Japanese poetry «Moon, sakura, snow» (Beijing, 2008). This paper is the result of the initial phase
of the work and is not intended to be comprehensive of all the stuff that should be studied in connection
with the study topic. In this paper, we studied the incarnation of the death motif in the title
of the text, the story lines of the three characters in the novel, the principles of naming names, the
system of topos; connection of the death motif with the themes of love and creativity in the novel,
some aspects of the nature – culture opposition. We conclude that the death motif is created by
weaving mythological allusions that penetrate the realistic narrative structure of the text.