In 1990, after the fall of Soviet Communism, Andrei Sinyavsky went home to Russia. In exile for more than two decades, the writer known as Abram Tertz had suffered prison and oppression for his lacerating critiques of total power in such works as On Socialist Realism and The Trial Begins. This text is a record of an exile's return - both a chronicle of poverty, crime and corruption, and a call for Russian intellectuals to rearm in a new struggle for freedom and democracy.

Andrei Sinyavsky wrote Strolls with Pushkin while confined to Dubrovlag, a Soviet labor camp, smuggling the pages out a few at a time to his wife. His irreverent portrait of Pushkin outraged emigres and Soviet scholars alike, yet his "disrespect" was meant only to rescue Pushkin from the stifling cult of personality that had risen up around him. Anglophone readers who question the longstanding adoration for Pushkin felt by generations of Russians will enjoy tagging along on Sinyavsky's strolls with the great poet, discussing his life, fiction, and famously untranslatable poems. This...

Andrei Sinyavsky wrote Strolls with Pushkin while confined to Dubrovlag, a Soviet labor camp, smuggling the pages out a few at a time to his wife. His irreverent portrait of Pushkin outraged emigres and Soviet scholars alike, yet his "disrespect" was meant only to rescue Pushkin from the stifling cult of personality that had risen up around him. Anglophone readers who question the longstanding adoration for Pushkin felt by generations of Russians will enjoy tagging along on Sinyavsky's strolls with the great poet, discussing his life, fiction, and famously untranslatable poems. This...