In his prime, satirist Mikhail Zoshchenko was more widely read in the Soviet Union than either Pasternak or Solzhenitsyn. His stories give expression to the experience of the ordinary Soviet citizen struggling to survive in the 1920s and '30s, beset by an acute housing shortage, ubiquitous theft and corruption, and the impenetrable new language of the Soviet state. Written in the semi-educated talk of the man or woman on the street, these stories enshrine one of the greatest achievements of the people of the Soviet Union--their gallows humor.

Harry N. Abrams, 2009.
ISBN: 9781590202111. 208 pp.
Translated by Jeremy Hicks.
Softcover. Near fine.