A new collection of stories by the acclaimed Ludmila Ulitskaya, masterfully translated into English
“[A] magnificent collection . . . [by] a writer of boundless tenderness.”—Geneviève Brisac, Le Monde
“Centrifugal, pensive, often elusive stories by one of the greatest living Russian writers (and leading anti-Putinist). . . . The stories are marvels of economy and the unexpected twist, each a memorable tour de force. . . . A welcome introduction to the short fiction of an essential writer.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
While we can feel, know, and study the body, the soul refuses definition. Where does it begin and end? What does the soul have to do with love? Does it exist at all, and if so, does it outlast the body? Or are the soul and body really one and the same?
These are questions posed by the characters who inhabit this book of stories by the award-winning Russian writer Ludmila Ulitskaya. A woman believes that the best way to control her life is to control her death. A landscape photographer wonders if the beauty he has witnessed can triumph over decay. A coroner dedicated to science is confronted by a startling physical anomaly, a lonely widow experiences an extraordinary transformation, a woman whose life is devoted to language finds words slipping away from her.
In these eleven stories, artfully rendered into English by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, Ulitskaya maps the edges of our lives, tracing a delicate geography of the soul.
Ludmila Ulitskaya (b. 1943) is an internationally acclaimed Russian novelist and short story writer. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky are an award-winning team of literary translators who have translated over thirty works from the Russian.
“[A] magnificent collection . . . [by] a writer of boundless tenderness.”—Geneviève Brisac, Le Monde
“Centrifugal, pensive, often elusive stories by one of the greatest living Russian writers (and leading anti-Putinist). . . . The stories are marvels of economy and the unexpected twist, each a memorable tour de force. . . . A welcome introduction to the short fiction of an essential writer.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Praise for Ludmila Ulitskaya:
“One of the most important living Russian writers.”―Gary Shteyngart
“Ulitskaya resists reductive ideological thinking, in her fiction as in life. She specializes in swerves of fate, not lockstep plots. Ulitskaya’s signature narrative perspective—a self-consciously feminine eye and ear intently at work—takes in matchmaking possibilities, mundane coincidences, and unexpected human chemistry. . . . The women in Ulitskaya’s work come off as strong and resilient, even magical.”—Leonard Bershidsky, The Atlantic
“[Ulitskaya] has become a voice of moral authority for differently minded Russians.”—Masha Gessen, New Yorker