This book is the first English-language translation of five "avan garde" plays published in the Soviet Union during the NEP period (except for Lev Luntz — 1920 and Mikhail Bulgakov — 1929), Evgenii Zamiatin and Mikhail Bulgakov are well known to scholars in the West. Lev Luntz, Anatoly Mariengof and Daniil Kharms, however, are still obscure. The monkeys are coming / Lev Luntz—Conspiracy of fools / Anatolii Mariengof—The fires of St. Dominic / Evgenii Zamiatin—A comedy of St. Petersburg / Daniil Kharms—Bliss / Mikhail Bulgakov ; translated by the late Carl R. Proffer