Sergei Dovlatov (1941–1990)

Instead of the usual disclaimer, Dovlatov wrote:

"The names, events, and dates given here are all real. I invented only those details that were not essential.

Therefore, any resemblance between the characters in this book and living people is intentional and malicious. And all the fictionalizing was unexpected and accidental."

In the sixties Dovlatov had dropped out of university and been drafted into the Soviet Internal Troops to work as a prison guard in high security camps. Unlike the camps show more for political prisoners that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote about, these camps are for criminals. They are so isolated and remote that the guards, as well as the criminals, are effectively serving a sentence. Distinctions between guards and prisoners break down.

The book is a series of first-person narrations by various guards, who appear in each other's stories from different perspectives. What they all have in common is a bleak and sardonic humour. Interspersed with the guard's narrations are letters written by the author to his New York publisher. The book is coming along in fits and starts as random sections are smuggled out from the USSR. The author's works have never been published there and have circulated in samizdat. Parts have been lost, and the author discusses with the publisher how he will manage the gaps. He talks about what he will include and what he will leave out, and his writing philosophy.

It took me a while to get into The Zone, but once I did I found it well worth the trouble. It's Dovlatov's world view that makes it fascinating. show less

Really fun, quick-witted satire of a man who chooses a tourist outpost in Russia as a kind of boozy comic self-imposed exile and circle of Hell. Writer Boris has to deal with his difficult writing career and estranged marriage while giving lectures on Pushkin to barely-listening tourists and living with a colorful cast of eccentrics. I loved Dovlatov's economic writing and aphoristic descriptions. So many memorable lines! You have to read slow but it's a very satisfying and rewarding book show more from an author about whom I want to learn more. show less

“Pushkin Hills” has a simple plot that really doesn’t go anywhere. Boris Alikhanov is an unpublished writer with an alcohol dependency, who is recently divorced from Tatyana and in need of money. To make matters worse, Tatyana is planning to emigrate to America with their daughter, Masha. Boris takes a job as a tour guide at the Pushkin Hills Preserve. Notwithstanding the thin plot, this autobiographical novella has much strength. Its tone is dark and ironic; it is filled with show more insightful observations on the Soviet culture, writing, censorship and emigration; there are humorous asides and crisp dialogue; and of course many delightful characterizations of the people Boris interacts with at the Preserve. show less

Another Russian writer that I've just discovered. He was severely censured during Soviet time, so at first he was published in the West, but after his death at the still young age of 48 (in New York where he had emigrated), his works became known in his homeland as well, and not just in "underground" publications as before.

This book is quite autobiographical. Dovlatov's writing talent really shines in it. I found his style bitterly sardonic and poignant, his eye for description of things show more around him super sharp, while he is also brutally honest about himself and his "failings". Though it was normal history in Soviet Russia to not let any real and dissenting talent break through the rock solid censure, it still feels sad to see such writer being obscure for so long. His deep frustration at being unable to earn his living at what he does best pours out with angst in this book. And then to have a very short life of freedom in New York - he died in 1990, just about the time socialism died in Soviet Russia too - a time when he could have gone back to Russia to be recognized for who he was, a fine writer...

I read this book in the original Russian, but it has been been translated into English - and that's where I see a huge challenge for the translator: I cannot fathom how to translate some of the dialogues in it, so peculiar to the Russian language alone: Dovlatov picked up so skillfully on the colorful, hardly translatable, expressions of the local population of the village near Pushkin Hills. show less