Victor Pelevin

Retells the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur set in an Internet chat room.

The Myth of Theseus and the Minotaur

The Helmet of Horror

Set in a crumbling Soviet Black Sea resort, The Life of Insects with its motley cast of characters who exist simultaneously as human beings (racketeers, mystics, drug addicts and prostitutes) and as insects, extended the surreal comic range for which Pelevin's first novel Omon Ra was acclaimed by critics. With consummate literary skill Pelevin creates a satirical bestiary which is as realistic as it is delirious - a bitter parable of contemporary Russia, full of the probing, disenchanted comedy that makes Pelevin a vital and altogether surprising writer.

The Life of Insects

Kurtadamın Kutsal Kitabı

A darkly comic work by the author of Buddha's Little Finger finds fifteen-year-old Moscow prostitute A. Huli hiding her identity as a two-thousand-year-old were-fox who seduces men to absorb their life force, a practice that catches the attention of a high-ranking intelligence officer and fellow werewolf. 10,000 first printing.

The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

TRANSHUMANISM INC.

Generation «П»

Чапаев и Пустота

Russian novelist Victor Pelevin is rapidly establishing himself as one of the most brilliant young writers at work today. His comic inventiveness and mind-bending talent prompted Time magazine to proclaim him a "psychedelic Nabokov for the cyber-age." In his third novel, Buddha's Little Finger, Pelevin has created an intellectually dazzling tale about identity and Russian history, as well as a spectacular elaboration of Buddhist philosophy. Moving between events of the Russian Civil War of 1919 and the thoughts of a man incarcerated in a contemporary Moscow psychiatric hospital, Buddha's Little Finger is a work of demonic absurdism by a writer who continues to delight and astonish.

Buddha's Little Finger

Омон Ра

Акико

Omon Ra

Damilola Karpov is a pilot. Living in Byzantium, a huge sky city floating above the land of Urkaine, he makes his living as a drone pilot - capable of being a cameraman who records the events unfolding in Urkaine or, with the weapons aboard his drone, of making a newsworthy event happen for his employers: 'Big Byz Media'. His recordings are known as S.N.U.F.F.: Special Newsreel/Universal Feature Film. S.N.U.F.F. is a superb post-apocalyptic novel, exploring the conflict between the nation of Urkaine, its causes and its relationship with the city 'Big Byz' above. Contrasting poverty and luxury, low and high technology, barbarity and civilisation - while asking questions about the nature of war, the media, entertainment and humanity.

S.N.U.F.F.

Roman thought he'd found the perfect opportunity to rebel. He may have been wrong. He awakens strapped to a set of parallel bars in a richly appointed sitting room, and begins a conversation with a masked man which will change his life. His world has been a facade - one which the mysterious Brahma is about to tear away. A stunning novel about the real world, and about the hidden channels of power behind the scenes, EMPIRE V is a post-modern satirical novel exploring the cults and corruption of politics, banking and power. And not only are these cults difficult to join - it turns out they may be impossible to leave . . .

The Prince of Hamlet

Empire V

When mythic Ariadne helped Theseus escape the Minotaur's labyrinth with the aid of a ball of thread, she set a precedent for the bewildered victims of a twenty-first-century Minotaur. In this radical reinvention of the ancient story, the labyrinth exists again - in the endless maze of the Internet. The only path through the alienated landscape lies in the threads trailing from chatrooms where strangers sit trapped and alone before their screens, assigned obscure aliases and commanded by the Helmet of Horror, the Minotaur himself. Victor Pelevin has created a mesmerising world where information is abundant but knowledge is ultimately unattainable. In a cyber age, is technology anything more than a myth itself? Victor Pelevin has established a reputation as one of the most audacious of the younger generation of Russian writers. He has degrees from Moscow's Gorky Institute of Literature and has written for the New York Times Magazine, Granta and Open City. He has been selected by the New Yorker as one of the 'Best European Writers Under 35' and by the Observer as one of the '21 Writers for the 21st Century'. His novel, Numbers, won the 2004 Grigoriev Prize from the Russian Academy of Critics. 'Pelevin is one of the funniest novelists writing today.' New Statesman 'A psychedelic Nabokov for the cyber age.' Time

Satirical stories by a Russian writer. The story, Vera Pavlovna's Ninth Dream, is on the transition from communism to capitalism as experienced by the cleaner of a public toilet, Bulldozer Driver's Day is on a hydrogen bomb assembly line, while The Ontology of Childhood compares childhood to prison. By the author of The Blue Lantern.

A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia and Other Stories

Set during the advent of perestroika, a surreal, satirical novella by a critically acclaimed young Russian writer traces the fate of the passengers on The Yellow Arrow, a long-distance Russian train headed for a ruined bridge, a train without an end or a beginning--and it makes no stops. Andrei, the mystic passenger, less and less lulled by the never-ending sound of the wheels, has begun to look for a way to get off. But life in the carriages goes on as always. This important young Russian author's first American translation garnered rave reviews. The main character, Andrei, is a passenger aboard the Yellow Arrow, who begins to despair over the trains ultimate destination and looks for a way out as the chapters count down. Indifferent to their fate, the other passengers carry on as usual — trading in nickel melted down fro the carriage doors, attending the Upper Bunk avant-garde theatre, and leafing through Pasternak’s Early Trains. Pelevin's art lies in the ease with which he shifts from precisely imagined science fiction to lyrical meditations on past and future. And, because he is a natural storyteller with a wonderfully absurd imagination. The Yellow Arrow is full of the ridiculous and the sublime. It is a reflective story, chilling and gripping.

The Yellow Arrow

In a recentNew York Times Magazine feature article, Victor Pelevin was cited as "almost alone among his generation of Russian novelists in speaking with a voice authentically his own, and in trying to write about Russian life in its current idiom." Since the publication of this collection of stories,The Blue Lantern, Pelevin's books have been translated into many languages, and Pelevin himself has been touted as a major world writer.The Blue Lantern, winner of the Russian Little Booker Prize, gathers eight of his very best stories. Various, delightful, and uncategorizable, the stories are highly addictive. Pelevin here, as inThe Yellow Arrow (New Directions, 1996),Omon Ra (ND, 1997), andA Werewolf Problem in Central Russia (ND, 1998), pays great attention to the meaning of life, in earnest and as spoof. In the title story, kids in a Pioneer camp tell terrifying bedtime stories; in "Hermit and Six-Toes," two chickens are obsessed with the nature of the universe as viewed from their poultry plant; the Young Communist League activists of "Mid-Game" change their sex to become hard-currency prostitutes; and "The Life and Adventures of Shed #XII" is the story of a storage hut whose dream is to become a bicycle.

The Blue Lantern and Other Stories

Andrew Bromfield

Now in paper, eight absurd, fable-like stories stories by the contemporary post-Soviet Union author.

A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia, and Other Stories

The collapse of the Soviet Union has opened up a huge consumer market, but how do you sell things to a generation that grew up with just one type of cola? When Tatarsky, a frustrated poet, takes a job as an advertising copywriter, he finds he has a talent for putting distinctively Russian twists on Western-style ads. But his success leads him into a surreal world of spin doctors, gangsters, drug trips, and the spirit of Che Guevera, who, by way of a Ouija board, communicates theories of consumer theology. A bestseller in Russia, Homo Zapiens displays the biting absurdist satire that has gained Victor Pelevin superstar status among today's Russian youth, disapproval from the conservative Moscow literary world, and critical acclaim worldwide.

Victor Pelevin

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