The latest addition to my website is Leonid Girshovich‘s Прайс [Preis]. This novel is set in the fictitious town of Ijma, somewhere in Siberia, during the 1950s. It had originally been inhabited by a native population but Stalin had sent many Jews there, during the period when he considered all Jews automatically as dissidents. But … Read more
This is a lively account of the exploits of the Russian commander, Vasily Chapaev, a historical person who fought and was killed in the Russian Civil War, fighting against the Whites under Alexander Kolchak. The story is told by Furmanov, who appears in the book as Fyodor Klichkov, Chapaev’s political commissar during the campaign. Klichkov/Furmanov … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Benedict Erofeev‘s Москва — Петушки (UK: Moscow Circles; US: Moscow to the End of the Line). This is a hilarious satire about a man, called Benny Erofeev, who is trying to get to Petushki (about 70 kilometres from Moscow) to visit his girlfriend for their regular Friday visit. … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Elena Chizhova‘s Время женщин (The Time of Women). This is story set in Soviet-era Leningrad, telling the story of Suzanna, a child who does not speak till she is seven but is yet intelligent and educated. Her mother, Antonina, who works in a factory, had had a very … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Fyodor Sologub‘s Творимая легенда (The Created Legend), a trilogy of novels which is concerned with both the upheavals in Russia at the time of the 1905 Revolution as well as having several fantasy elements. The first book (Капли крови (Drops of Blood)) tells of Trirodov, a somewhat larger … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Fyodor Sologub‘s Мелкий бес (The Petty Demon). This is a social satire on the inhabitants of a small Russian town, but focussing on a teacher, Ardalyon Borisych Peredonov. Peredonov is lazy, incompetent, a bully, racist, sexist, petty self-centred and full of himself. He lives with his second cousin, … Read more
The latest addition to my website Yuri Mamleyev‘s Шатуны (The Sublimes). This one of the most unpleasant books I have read for a long time. Mamleyev is clearly aiming to show the dark side of life and deal with issues of mortality and immortality, life and death and the (very) dark side of life under … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Georgi Vladimov‘s Генерал и его армия [The General and His Army]. This is a fictionalised account of the Soviet capture of Kiev from the retreating Nazis in 1943 and the Battle of Moscow in 1941. The eponymous general is General Kobrisov, based on General Chibisov. Vladimov came in … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Georgi Vladimov‘s Верный Руслан (Faithful Ruslan). This is a classic of Soviet-era gulag literature though, unlike other gulag novels, such as One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, it is set in 1956-1957, after Khrushchev released most of those imprisoned under Stalin. Indeed, this novel opens the … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Kazuo Ishiguro‘s The Buried Giant. This book has received a lot of criticism, not least because it is major departure for Ishiguro as it is, to all intents and purposes, a Lord of the Rings/Arthurian legend-style fantasy. Set in the fifth/sixth century, it tells of the quest of … Read more