Post–social realism, a new crop of Russian writers indulges the ironic, the satirical, and the sardonic--anything but the earnest. Wladimir Kaminer writes of trading in all sorts of new markets in "Animal Transport" and of the demise of an iconic Russian fantasy in "Paris Lost"; Boris Fishman interviews him on writing, reading, music, and being an expat in Berlin. Vyacheslav Pyetsukh, Alexander Pokrovsky, and Alexander Selin all make merry with other icons of Russian-ness not yet defunct. Nina Kossman provides new translations of the essential poet Marina Tsvetaeva, writing intensely of nature and the emotions in a world of revolutionary change, while contemporary poets Gennady Aygi and Larissa Miller aim to chart a new course, looking backward and forward at once.
