Beyond the Looking-glass

As Russian society passes through a stage of wrenching transformation, the vision of its writers has veered toward the absurd. Even those who work in a realist style enrich their stories with fantasy and a sense of the impossible. This unique collection presents the latest work of some of the modern absurdist writers, Genrikh Sapgir, Victor Pelevin, Valery Ronshin, Alexander Selin, Grigory Kruzhkov. The more realist writers Alexander Kabakov, Nikolai Klimontovich and Ludmilla Shtern contribute work that testify to the grim humor that persists throughout contemporary Russian literature.