Fiction by Russian immigrant authors writing in English
Explore captivating English fiction by Russian immigrant authors. Discover a curated list of books written by talented writers who blend Russian heritage with English storytelling.
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The Russian Debutante's Handbook
by Gary Shteyngart
NAMED ONE OF THE ATLANTIC'S GREAT AMERICAN NOVELS OF THE PAST 100 YEARS A visionary novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Super Sad True Love Story and Little Failure. The Russian Debutante's Handbook introduces Vladimir Girshkin, one of the most original and unlikely heroes of recent times. The twenty-five-year-old unhappy lover to a fat dungeon mistress, affectionately nicknamed "Little Failure" by his high-achieving mother, Vladimir toils his days away as a lowly clerk at the bureaucratic Emma Lazarus Immigrant Absorption Society. When a wealthy but psychotic old Russian war hero appears, Vladimir embarks on an adventure of unrelenting lunacy that takes us from New York's Lower East Side to the hip frontier wilderness of Prava--the Eastern European Paris of the nineties. With the help of a murderous but fun-loving Russian mafioso, Vladimir infiltrates the Prava expat community and launches a scheme as ridiculous as it is brilliant. Bursting with wit, humor, and rare insight, The Russian Debutante's Handbook is both a highly imaginative romp and a serious exploration of what it means to be an immigrant in America.
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Memoirs of a Muse
by Lara Vapnyar
Humorous, charming, and written with the same beguiling grace and vividness as her story collection "There Are Jews in My House," Vapnyar's first novel is a poignant and comic story about a delightfully sincere modern-day muse.
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Natasha
by David Bezmozgis
Few readers had heard of David Bezmozgis before May 2003, when Harpers, Zoetrope, and The New Yorker all printed stories from his forthcoming collection.
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The Dream Life of Sukhanov
by Olga Grushin
Olga Grushin’s astonishing literary debut has won her comparisons with everyone from Gogol to Nabokov. A virtuoso study in betrayal and its consequences, it explores—really, colonizes—the consciousness of Anatoly Sukhanov, who many years before abandoned the precarious existence of an underground artist for the perks of a Soviet apparatchik. But, at the age of 56, his perfect life is suddenly disintegrating. Buried dreams return to haunt him. New political alignments threaten to undo him. Vaulting effortlessly from the real to the surreal and from privilege to paranoia, The Dream Life of Sukhanov is a darkly funny, demonically entertaining novel.