Rasskazy: New Fiction from a New Russia

by Ekaterina Taratuta, Vladimir Kozlov, Jeff Parker, et al.

Few countries have undergone more radical transformations than Russia has since the fall of the Soviet Union. The stories in Rasskazy: New Fiction from a New Russia present twenty-two depictions of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0982053908
• ISBN13: 9780982053904
• Release Date: September 2009
• Publisher: Tin House Books
• Length: 375 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Excellent Short Stories

Already one of the best collections of short stories I've ever read, and I haven't even finished it yet.If you liked Arkady Babchenko's book 'One Soldier's War', you'll like his related story here. There's also a story evidently by a Chechen who witnessed the war.If you like the classic Russian short stories of the 19th century, you'll be interested to see how well the Russians are writing now. These stories seem somehow more fresh to me than most American ones, less self-conscious in general.It might have been nice to have included something by Victor Pelevin, but I guess he's had plenty of exposure already. If you like short stories, you'll love this book. Incidentally, if you're also interested in the current state of Russian poetry, try 'Contemporary russian Poetry, An Anthology' edited by Evgeny Bunimovich.

Russian short stories

Rasskazy is a collection of short stories (twenty-two, to be exact) by contemporary Russian authors. All the authors are relatively young; there's a list of contributors in the back of the book with information about each writer, and nearly all of them were born in the 1970s or later. It gives the stories an interesting perspective, since most of them came of age after the Soviet Union disbanded. I thought the stories were a mixed bag. Some I loved (Drill and Song Day, One Year in Paradise), some I liked (D.O.B., Rules), and a few I didn't care for (The Unbelievable and Tragic History...). Without exception, all the stories are bleak. That's okay though; I happen to like bleak. I felt like curling up on the couch with a shot of vodka and contemplating my own life after reading this book;-). All in all, the stories provide a nice (if bleak) insight into modern day Russia.