Publisher's Synopsis
This volume collects two novellas by the legendary nonconformist Russian writer Yuz Aleshkovsky. Profoundly witty and obscene, these works are absurdist satires that illustrate the humiliation and debasement inflicted on subjects of totalitarian systems. Nikolai Nikolaievich is a merciless sendup of the Soviet Union's shambolic program of pseudoscientific experimentation: the novella's title character is employed by the state as a daily sperm donor, providing raw material for scientists, while he only dreams of making a simple living as a cobbler. In Camouflage, the daily Soviet reality of food shortages, muddy roads, and alcoholism is presented as a theatrical cover to fool Western spies, concealing the real truth of Soviet society-a truth that is even more disturbing.
