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Dreams of Our Russian Summer

August 2007

On the Use and Abuse of Letherburg for Life

By Alexander Skidan

You will have had no difficulty recognizing the German crib tacked onto Daniil Kharms’s neologism in the title of my remarks.

Translated from Russian by Thomas Campbell

The Beginning

By Anyuta Evseeva

I wake up at eight a.m. On the sixteenth floor every day at eight a.m. Sorokin sneezes.

Translated from Russian by Dinara Georgeoliani & Mark Halperin

Milgrom

By Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

So the seamstress is out, and Mom must save the situation somehow, except here’s the thing: there’s no money.

Translated from Russian by Keith Gessen & Anna Summers

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Dark Thoughts

By Regina Derieva

I’m almost like that dark hallway

Translated from Russian by Valzhyna Mort

Unity of Form

By Regina Derieva

People zealously granted me headless nails / and spools without thread.

Translated from Russian by Valzhyna Mort

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Pears from Gudauty

By Ludmila Ulitskaya

Mother loved pears that were within an inch of decaying, so that your fingers left indents and, when you bit into them, thick honeyed juice flowed out, summoning every wasp for miles around.

Translated from Russian by Arch Tait

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The Conversation of the Hours

By Alexander Vvedensky

Translated from Russian by Eugene Ostashevsky

A Drawing Textbook

By Maxim Kantor

The barmaid poured him vodka, and Sergei Ilyich took it up with an accustomed, firm grip that was even elegant in its way.

Translated from Russian by Timothy D. Sergay

The Golem in the Mirror

By Nadezhda Gorlova

I must involuntarily live in a world that the old woman has dragged back from nonexistence.

Translated from Russian by Deborah Hoffman

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