Part horror story, part ideological stand-up comedy, Platonov's plays depict an absurd, nightmarish world in which hope and cynicism are inextricable. Their publication in this appropriately clever and meticulously annotated translation serves as an important contribution to our understanding of one of the twentieth century's most tragic chapters. Platonov, whose complex prose has already established him as Russia's closest equivalent to Faulkner, here emerges as a dramatist who can easily enter into conversation with Beckett.–Eric Naiman, author of Nabokov, Perversely