Present Imperfect

Historisk laveste pris

The selections in this Anthology overturn Soviet-era taboos with a vengeance. First published in the aftermath of Mikhail Gorbachev's liberalizing reforms, these stories revel in the basic commonalities of human experience even as they reassert a peculiarly Russian belief in the spiritual, mystical, and supernatural. They satirize Soviet literary canons while exploring a full gamut of styles, from neorealism to magico-folkloric fantasy. Included in the volume are works by well-known pioneers of the "new women's prose" as well as by less familiar talents. Bold in thematic conception and stylistic experimentation, their stories are socially engaged–in the classic Russian literary tradition–and yet at the same time intensely personal. While many of these writers share a feminist outlook, their perspectives are vastly disparate and often steeped in a peculiarly post-Soviet irony: In one story, for example, a girl with no money and no prospects of earning any turns to prostitution–and fails