Sergei Zalygin (1913–2000)

Anthologies can sometimes be rather uneven in the quality of the selection, but in this case I found the stories fit well together and, as a whole, I enjoyed them. The only story I really couldn't get into was the bizarre and rather incoherent "Cat-Strangler Silver."

I particularly liked some of the more fantastic tales: Bitov's "Pushkin's Photograph," in which a time-traveler sent back in time on an important mission goes native and has to be rescued by his colleagues in the future; Arvo Valton's "Love in Mustamagi," an oddly touching story about two people who consummate a relationship without ever meeting; and A. Yaroslavtev's (better known as Arkady Strugatsky) "Details of Nikita Vorontsov's Life," which features a journal of a clairvoyant which may or may not be a hoax.

Many of the tales had twists at the end (for example, Zalygin's self-reflexive "Prose"), which, although rarely completely unexpected to an experienced reader, generally managed to seem natural or thought-provoking rather than contrived. Even the more realistic tales were often somewhat playful, and they generally had a lighter feel -- not what one necessarily associates with the heavy realism or political commentary of classical Russian prose. Grekova's "No Smiles" is an introspective look at the experiences of a woman in a male-dominated field, and Mishveladze's "A Question Mark and an Exclamation Point" is a very funny story about the perversity of human nature.

An interesting anthology that offered a different facet of modern Russian writing which I hadn't encountered before. Also worth noting is the variety of authors represented -- the volume includes several authors who technically aren't Russian at all, but come from some of the (then) Soviet republics: Valton (Estonia), Elchin (Azerbaijan), Mishveladze (Georgia).… (mere)