A new collection of stories by the acclaimed Ludmila Ulitskaya, masterfully translated into English “[A] magnificent collection . . . [by] a writer of boundless tenderness.”—Geneviève Brisac, Le Monde “Centrifugal, pensive, often elusive stories by one of the greatest living Russian writers (and leading anti-Putinist)... The stories are marvels of economy and the unexpected twist, each a memorable tour de force... A welcome introduction to the short fiction of an essential writer.”— Kirkus Reviews (starred review) While we can feel, know, and study the body, the soul refuses definition. Where does it begin and end? What does the soul have to do with love? Does it exist at all, and if so, does it outlast the body? Or are the soul and body really one and the same? These are questions posed by the characters who inhabit this book of stories by the award-winning Russian writer Ludmila Ulitskaya. A woman believes that the best way to control her life is to control her death. A landscape photographer wonders if the beauty he has witnessed can triumph over decay. A coroner dedicated to science is confronted by a startling physical anomaly, a lonely widow experiences an extraordinary transformation, a woman whose life is devoted to language finds words slipping away from her. In these eleven stories, artfully rendered into English by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, Ulitskaya maps the edges of our lives, tracing a delicate geography of the soul.
Author
RUS: Людмила Евгеньевна Улицкая Lyudmila Ulitskaya is a critically acclaimed modern Russian novelist and short-story writer. She was born in the town of Davlekanovo in Bashkiria in 1943. She grew up in Moscow where she studied biology at the Moscow State University. Having worked in the field of genetics and biochemistry, Ulitskaya began her literary career by joining the Jewish drama theatre as a literary consultant. She was the author of two movie scripts produced in the early 1990s—The Liberty Sisters (Сестрички Либерти, 1990) and A Woman for All (Женщина для всех, 1991). Ulitskaya's first novel Sonechka (Сонечка) published in Novy Mir in 1992 almost immediately became extremely popular, and was shortlisted for the Russian Booker Award. Nowadays her works are much admired by the reading public and critics in Russia and many other countries. Her works have been translated into several languages and received several international and Russian literary awards, including the Russian Booker for Kukotsky's Case (2001). Lyudmila Ulitskaya currently resides in Moscow. Ulitskaya's works have been translated into many foreign languages. In Germany her novels have been added to bestseller list thanks to features of her works in a television program hosted by literary critic Elke Heidenreich.
