The stories translated in this fascinating anthology reveal the peculiarly Russian world of fantasy: conversations among corpses in a graveyard; a skeleton bounding up to its undertaker at a party; a dead man's account of the wasteland of the afterlife; a woman disappearing into a mirror to become the refleciton within. Are these really incursions into other worlds, or are the characters quite simply mad? Marily Minto gives brief biographical details for each author along with an analysis of the story, providing both general readers and students of Russian literature with a basis on which to build their own interpretations.

This is a title in the Bristol Classical Press Russian Texts series, in Russian with English notes, vocabulary and introduction. The influence of Andrey Platonov (1899-1951), a gifted writer of the Soviet era, has pervaded Soviet and Russian literature since the 1950s. "The River Potudan" (1937), should introduce the student of Russian to the complex thought and ideas that writers like Platonov, despite the severity of the times, were able, and brave enough, to convey. This story concerns a soldier returning from war, who with the support of a community of friends and family, builds a new life in Communist Russia. Complex issues are at stake: the hero has been emasculated by his experience; not harmony, but disintegration and alienation are characteristic of the Soviet society presented.