Rasskazy: New Fiction From a New Russia

08.23.09

Russia has seen its share of changes, rapidly over the last century and a half.  And so has its literature, from the days of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, to the writers managing to document the Soviet era, to today's pen wielders of supposed freedom and autonomy amidst ongoing conflicts in Chechnya and growing gangland capitalism. Editors Mikhail Iossel and Jeff Parker bring us a new survey of Russian literature for current times.  Olena Jennings reviews.