Rock, paper, scissors and other stories
by Maxim Osipov, preface by Svetlana Alexievich, edited by Boris Dralyuk, translated from the Russian by Boris Dralyuk, Alex Fleming, and Anne Marie Jackson
NYRB, 2019, ISBN: 9781681373324, 312 pages
SHORTLISTED FOR THE READ RUSSIA PRIZE 2020
But then day will come, and the birds will still be there—fowls of the air, fowls domestic, wild, all of them. The world doesn’t break, no matter what you throw at it. That’s just how it’s built.
from the Cry of the Domestic Fowl
Osipov’s fiction presents a nuanced, collage-like portrait of life in provincial Russia—its tragedies, frustrations, and moments of humble beauty and inspiration.