The New Soviet Fiction: Pushkin's Photograph; Auto Accident in Paris; No Smiles; The Sleeper; Cat-Strangler Silver; Antileader; A Question Mark; The Art of Needles and Sins; Through the Fields; Wat Should I Tell the Cow?; The Devil's Wheel in Kobuleti...

Published within the last few years and selected by Novy Mir editor Sergei Zalygin so as to reflect literary talent from various regions of the USSR, the stories range from straightforward depictions of ordinary people's lives to a sophisticated piece by Andrei Bitov about time travel to Pushkin's era. Irina Grekova exposes intrigues in academia, Bulat Okudzhava portrays a Stalinist country bumpkin, Valentin Rasputin writes lyrically about Lake Baikal, and other, lesser-known authors provide lingering insights into human minds and emotions.