The Blue Lantern: Stories - Softcover

In "Hermit and Six-Toes," for instance, two mystical philosophers turn out to be chickens from the Lunacharsky Broiler Combine. In between discussions of the organization of the heavens, the impassability of the Wall of the World, and the divine hierarchies of the Feeder, they manage to escape from the "Decisive Stage" into another coop. When the new flock hails them as prophets, Hermit and Six-Toes preach a doctrine of fasting and exercising themselves into an unappetizing state. It's a very funny story, with political implications that are impossible to ignore. (The fat chickens that reside nearest to the Feeder, for instance, ape Communist party slogans.) Animal Farm this isn't, however; these chickens are more concerned with defining the nature of reality than with social injustice. Like Hermit and Six-Toes, Pelevin deals in shattered realities and partial truths rather than ideologies, and his stories showcase a unique sensibility, one that is equal parts mystic and satirist.

Victor Pelevin is one of Russia’s most successful post-Soviet writers. He won the Russian Booker prize in 1993 Born on November 22, 1962 in Moscow, he attended the Moscow Institute of Power Engineering, and the Institute of Literature. He’s now been published throughout Europe. His books include A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia, Omon Ra, The Blue Lantern, The Yellow Arrow, and The Hall of the Singing Caryatids.

Born in Yorkshire, England, Andrew Bromfield is a translator of Russian literature and an editor and co-founder of the literary journal Glas.