From Powells.com
Staff Pick
Basically the Soviet Harry Potter, both in terms of its huge popularity and its story of a witchcraft institute. As a Russian novel written for adults, it is much more darkly humorous than the wizard school we are used to. Kudos to the University of Chicago for publishing a new translation of this Russian classic and for retaining the original witty illustrations! Recommended By Jason C., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Sasha, a young computer programmer from Leningrad, is driving through the forests of Northwest Russia to meet up with some friends for a nature vacation. He picks up a couple of local hitchhikers, who persuade him to come work with them at the National Institute for the Technology of Witchcraft and Thaumaturgy, or NITWiT. The adventures Sasha has in the largely dysfunctional Institute involve all sorts of magical beings and devices — a wish-granting fish, a talking cat who can remember only the beginnings of stories, a sofa that translates fairy tales into reality, a motorcycle that can zoom into the imagined future, a hungry dog-size mosquito — along with a variety of wizards (including Merlin), vampires, and petty bureaucrats.First published in Russia in 1964, Monday Starts on Saturday has become the most popular Strugatsky novel in the authors' homeland. Like the works of Gogol and Kafka, it tackles the nature of institutions — here focusing on one devoted to discovering and perfecting human happiness. By turns wildly imaginative, hilarious, and disturbing, Monday Starts on Saturday is a comic masterpiece by two of the world's greatest science fiction writers.
Review
"Monday Starts on Saturday is not just an ingenious and gripping read but simply a delight from start to finish....This is a novel with which to fall in love." Adam Roberts, from his foreword
Review
"This melding of bureaucracy and the numinous is highly enjoyable and impossible to compare to any other work." Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Boris Strugatsky and his brother, Arkady Strugatsky, are the most famous and popular Russian writers of science fiction, and the authors of over 25 novels and novellas including The Doomed City, The Inhabited Island, and Roadside Picnic. Their books have been widely translated and made into a number of films. Boris Strugatsky died in 2012.