This is the largest and most comprehensive anthology available in English of the new Soviet prose which has flourished in the time of glasnost. The works translated here were published in during the last three years of the Soviet Union, and demonstrate the remarkable diversity of style and subject matter which this period of freedom has encouraged.

The ten authors, all very well-known to Soviet readers, cover a wide range of subject matter, from provincial tragedy, to family drama treated with a startling frankness, to avant garde satire, to a new kind of historical saga.

Contents: Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, "Our Crowd"; Fazil Iskander, "Old Hasan's Pipe"; Mikhail Kuraev, "Captain Dikshtein"; Tatyana Tolstaya, "Night"; Vladimir Makanin, "Left Behind"; Nikolai Shmelyov, "The Visit"; Valery Popov, "Dreams from the Top Berth"; Anatoly Genatulin, "Rough Weather"; Viktor Erofeyev, "The Parakeet" and "Anna's Body"; Alexander Golovin, "Anna Petrovna."