"If reality is said to be stranger than fiction, Sorokin's fiction goes further, to make the point that the pornographic, as he writes it, is a way of bearing witness to the past and present...These stories are not for the faint-hearted. Reading them is like waking violently from a deep sleep–and the shock continues to haunt one." –Tomoé Hill,
The Spectator "The Sorokin renaissance continues after
Telluria with a vital selection of the Russian enfant terrible's best shorts....As astute as they are provocative, these stories are an ideal introduction to the prolific and fearless Sorokin." –
Publishers Weekly Starred Review
"Extravagant, remarkable, politically and socially devastating, the tone and style without precedent, the parables merciless, the nightmares beyond outrance, the violence unparalleled, these stories, translated with fearless agility by Max Lawton, showcase the great novelist Vladimir Sorokin at his divinely disturbing best." –Joy Williams