The Blizzard

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A darkly comic dystopian odyssey, from one of Russia's leading contemporary novelists 
 
Garin, a country doctor, is desperately trying to reach the village of Dolgoye, where a mysterious epidemic is transforming the villagers into zombies. He has with him a vaccine which will prevent the spread of this epidemic, but a terrible blizzard turns his journey into the stuff of nightmare. A trip that should take hours turns into a metaphysical odyssey, in which he encounters strange beasts, apparitions, hallucinations and dangerous fellow men. Trapped in this existential storm, Sorokin's characters fight their way through a landscape that owes as much to Chekhov's 19th-century Russia as it does to near-future, post-apocalyptic literature. Fantastical, comic and richly drawn, The Blizzard at once answers to the canon of Russian writers and makes a fierce statement about life in contemporary Russia.

Vladimir Sorokin [is] Russia's most inventive contemporary author

Vladimir Sorokin (born 1955) is the author of eleven novels, including The Blizzard, also published as a Penguin Modern Classic, The Ice Trilogy andThe Queue. His works have been translated into thirty languages and won many prizes, including the Andrei Bely Prize and the Maxim Gorky Prize. In 2013 he was a finalist for the Man Booker International Prize. He lives in Moscow.

Garin, a country doctor, is desperately trying to reach the village of Dolgoye, where a mysterious epidemic is transforming the villagers into zombies. He has with him a vaccine which will prevent the spread of this epidemic, but a terrible blizzard turns his journey into the stuff of nightmare. A trip that should take hours turns into a metaphysical odyssey, in which he encounters strange beasts, apparitions, hallucinations and dangerous fellow men. Trapped in this existential storm, Sorokin's characters fight their way through a landscape that owes as much to Chekhov's 19th-century Russia as it does to near-future, post-apocalyptic literature. Fantastical, comic and richly drawn, The Blizzard at once answers to the canon of Russian writers and makes a fierce statement about life in contemporary Russia.

Vladimir Sorokin

Jamey Gambrell

Vladimir Sorokin [is] Russia's most inventive contemporary author

Vladimir Sorokin is one of Russia's greatest writers, and this novel is one of his best. Day of the Oprichnik is a haunting and terrifying vision of modern Russia projected two decades into the future - or maybe not the future at all. A joy to read - more entertaining, dynamic, engaging, and deeply hilarious than a dystopian novel has any right to be

author of Absurdistan and Super Sad True Love Story

Anyone who wants to learn more about Russia and what could be the outcome of [Vladimir] Putin's rule should read the book. It's dark and dystopian, but it's a part of our life

Compelling . . . Devastating . . . Powerful . . . In Day of the Oprichnik, [Sorokin] combines futurological invention with political archaism to vicious satirical effect . . . It's as if hi-tech limbs had been grafted onto the torso of early modern statecraft: Wolf Hall meets William Gibson

Moscow 2028: Andrei Danilovich Komiaga, oprichnik, member of the czar's inner circle of trusted courtiers, rouses himself from a drunken stupor and prepares for another day of debauchery, violence, terror and beauty. In this New Russia, futuristic technology combine with the draconian world of Ivan the Terrible to create a dystopia chillingly akin to reality. Over the twenty-four-hour span of the novel, Komiaga will rape, pillage and torture, in the name of the czar he fears and adores. Shimmering with invention, fierce social commentary and razor-sharp wit, Day of the Oprichnik imagines a near future too disturbing to contemplate and too close to reality to ignore.

Vladimir Sorokin

Praise for Day of the Oprichnik

Vladimir Sorokin [is] Russia's most inventive contemporary author

Vladimir Sorokin is one of Russia's greatest writers, and this novel is one of his best. Day of the Oprichnik is a haunting and terrifying vision of modern Russia projected two decades into the ...

Anyone who wants to learn more about Russia and what could be the outcome of [Vladimir] Putin's rule should read the book. It's dark and dystopian, but it's a part of our life

Vladimir Sorokin [is] Russia's most inventive contemporary author

Vladimir Sorokin is one of Russia's greatest writers, and this novel is one of his best. Day of the Oprichnik is a haunting and terrifying vision of modern Russia projected two decades into the ...

Anyone who wants to learn more about Russia and what could be the outcome of [Vladimir] Putin's rule should read the book. It's dark and dystopian, but it's a part of our life

Vladimir Sorokin [is] Russia's most inventive contemporary author

Vladimir Sorokin is one of Russia's greatest writers, and this novel is one of his best. Day of the Oprichnik is a haunting and terrifying vision of modern Russia projected two decades into the ...

Anyone who wants to learn more about Russia and what could be the outcome of [Vladimir] Putin's rule should read the book. It's dark and dystopian, but it's a part of our life

Books by Vladimir Sorokin

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