Synopses & Reviews
Set in the vast Kazakh steppes of the crumbling Soviet Empire, Oleg Pavlov's kaleidoscopic tale is peopled with soldiers and prisoners, hoboes and refugees and mice that steal medicines. Poetic, tragic, and darkly comic, the novel is at once a grotesque portrayal of late Soviet reality and an apocalyptic allegory in the vein of William Faulkner and Franz Kafka.
Synopsis
From one of Russias greatest authors comes a ferocious and anarchically comic topical tale of life in the Russian army
Synopsis
In the vast Kazakh steppes of the crumbling Soviet Empire, Alyosha has finished his army service and is promised a gift from his deaf commander: an everlasting steel tooth. As he waits for it in the infirmary, he agrees to help out a medical officer, and they set out on a journey that takes them all the way to the kingdom of the dead.
Oleg Pavlov's kaleidoscope of a tale is peopled with soldiers and prisoners, hoboes and refugees and mice that steal medicines. Their surreal inner world is vividly reflected in Pavlov's expressive prose, reminiscent of Platonov. Poetic, tragic and darkly comic, the novel is at once a grotesque portrayal of late Soviet reality and an apocalyptic allegory that has drawn comparisons with Faulkner and Kafka.
About the Author
Oleg Pavlov: Oleg Pavlov is one of the most highly-regarded Russian writers today. He has won the Russian Booker Prize (2002) and Solzhenitsyn Prize (2012) among many other awards. Born in Moscow in 1970, Pavlov spent his military service as a prison guard in Kazakhstan. Many of the incidents portrayed in his fiction were inspired by his experiences there: he recalls how he found himself reading about Karabas, the very camp he had worked at, in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyns
The Gulag Archipelago, became Solzhenitsyns secretary and was inspired to continue the great writers work. Pavlovs writing is firmly in the tradition of great Russian novelists such as Dostoyevsky and Solzhenitsyn.
Anna Gunin has translated I am a Chechen! by German Sadulaev and The Sky Wept Fire by Mikail Eldin. Her translations of Pavel Bazhovs folk tales appear in Russian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov (Penguin Classics), shortlisted for the 2014 Rossica Prize. She has also translated poetry, plays and film scripts by Denis Osokin and Yuri Arabov.