This second volume of Soviet Short Stories includes pieces by Isaac Babel, Andrei Sinyavsky (Tertz) and Evgenii Zamyatin, whose famous prophetic novel "We", was acknowledged by Orwell as a model for his anti-Utopian 1984.
These nine stories include the work of several young contemporary writers such as Bitov and Urusov, whose main concern is with the personal psychology and problems of young people; the linking of personal confusion with wider social issues, such as censorship, and the rejection by the young of the inhibited, dull and conformist life of their parents.
The English translations which are printed in a parallel text are both literary and close to the Russian, and there are detailed notes and biographies to help the student.