From the reign of the Tsars in the early 19th century to the collapse of the Soviet Union and beyond, the short story has long occupied a central place in Russian culture. Included are pieces from many of the acknowledged masters of Russian literature - including Pushkin, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and Solzhenitsyn - alongside tales by long-suppressed figures such as the subversive Kryzhanowsky and the surrealist Shalamov. Whether written in reaction to the cruelty of the bourgeoisie,...

America is at war and the stakes are huge. The fight isn't just in Iraq and Afghanistan; it's a global contest between the United States, radical Islam, a resurgent Russia, and a virulent New Left coming to power in Latin America and stalking the corridors of power around the world. These three enemies of America are separate, but still cooperate -- and in his stunning new book, Shadow World, Robert Chandler shows how.

A short yet fascinating account of Russia's most celebrated writer.In Robert Chandler's exquisite biography, literary giant Alexander Pushkin, lauded as the Russian Shakespeare, is examined as writer, lover and public figure. Chandler explores his relationship to politics and provides a fascinating glimpse of the turbulent history Pushkin lived through. The book acts as a succinct guide to anybody trying to understand Russia's most celebrated literary figure and also illuminates th...

Rusia interior, años treinta. Un equipo de trabajadores se dedica a excavar los cimientos de un inmenso edificio: una casa palaciega para el futuro perfecto socialista que, están convencidos, está al alcance de la mano. Sin embargo, cuanto más duro trabajan y más profundamente cavan, más cosas salen mal y el sitio más se asemeja a una inmensa tumba. La zanja es el libro más abiertamente político de Platónov, escrito en respuesta directa a las escalofriantes brutalidades de la col...

Description“In the steppe near Tashkent they came upon a never-ending ladder with wooden rungs and iron rails and that stretched across the earth from horizon to horizon ... Whistling and thundering, a snake-like wonder hurtled past them, packed both on the inside and on top with infidels shouting and waving their hands. ‘The End of the World!’ thought both Mahmud-Hodja the Sunni and Djebral the Shiite.”Set mainly in Uzbekistan between 1900 and 1980, The Railway introduces ...

April 1942, der Deutsch-Sowjetische Krieg tobt seit einem Jahr, doch im Hause der Familie Schaposchnikow mag man nicht glauben, dass die deutschen Truppen bis nach Stalingrad vorrücken könnten. Dann aber schlägt die Rote Armee ihre Lager dort auf, und die scheinbar noch ferne Bedrohung ist plötzlich grausame Wirklichkeit. Die zahlreichen engeren und fernen Mitglieder der Familie Schaposchnikow müssen sich mit dem Alltag des Krieges auseinandersetzen.Eindringlich und voller erzähleri...

In 1939, a ten-year-old Igor Golomstock accompanied his mother, a medical doctor, to the vast network of labour camps in the Russian Far East. While she tended patients, he was minded by assorted 'trusty' prisoners – hardened criminals – and returned to Moscow an almost feral adolescent, fluent in obscene prison jargon but intellectually ignorant. Despite this dubious start he became a leading art historian and co-author (with his close friend Andrey Sinyavsky) of the first, deeply controv...

Mark Twain wrote in 1869 in Innocents Abroad: Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.?The Strange Request introduces Alex with a need for nurture and a full life. His parents kept him sequestered for years for unusual reasons. An older sister moved a...

The discovery of a large collection of gold nuggets at the bottom of a waterfall in an enchanted valley triggers a group to circle the world to gather world wealth without disturbing the earth or causing pollution. Some of the wealth would be used to fund Green Earth projects, with some as basic as solar panels, in addition to worldwide awareness of the pending disaster of global warming and destructive wars. They develop a small SeaDrone able to jet to the bottom of the seas for vast coll...

"La Doa, One Person as Three" describes a wealthy woman who creates two other personalities to find a non-violent way to destroy a drug operation in a remote Guatemalan town: a sister in plain dress and her angry mental creature full of power. She inspires the people of the town to pull together to love and trust each other. At the same time her son, who is on drugs, finds a cure from a Mayan Curandero and becomes a new man.The ancient town moves into the modern age, keeping old tr...

An urgent message summoned Mike Talbot to search for his missing relative, Albert, on an isolated island in the Pacific NW. There Agatha, a life long resident, has been knitting the mysteries, problems, and sensitive secrets of the island into a code, incredible stories that few could believe until they ended. Occasionally she leaned back and patted her favorite dog, Bruno. This remarkable dog had helped solve these mysteries, mysteries that he understood, but had to reveal in his unique w...

Magic Moments as Paths Cross is a collection of true stories the author encountered that were too special to forget, teaching him about the importance of cultures around the world, introducing him to inspirational people, and exposing him to amazing situations.It was first written as a log for his children and grand children to inspire them to find their own magic moments in life, but he was encouraged to share it with others as a record of moments that should not be forgo...