In this satire of Soviet life, an insecure but much-published novelist, Yefim Rakhlin, learns that the Writers' Union is giving fur hats to its members based on their importance, and that he rates only fluffy tomcat. Translated by Susan Brownsberger.

In 1982 -- not coincidentally, just two years before the year made famous by Orwell -- Vitaly Kartsev, an exiled Soviet writer, discovers that a German travel agency is booking flights to a variety of tempting locations and, thanks to guaranteed passage through a time warp, to a variety of tantalizing years in the future. Moscow? 2042? Who could resist? And so begins Vladimir Voinovich's satiric -- and, as current events would cast it, prophetic -- tale of life in the USSr in the not-so-distant future. Kartsev's trip home turns out to be a series of outrageous escapades involving terrorists,...

Ivan Chonkin is a simple, bumbling peasant who has been drafted into the Red Army. Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, he is sent to an obscure village with one week's ration of canned meat and orders to guard a downed plane. Apparently forgotten by his unit, Chonkin resumes his life as a peasant and passes the war tending the village postmistress's garden. Just after the German invasion, the secret police discover this mysterious soldier lurking behind the front line. Their pursuit of Chonkin and his determined resistance lead to wild skirmishes and slapstick encounters.

This hilarious novel following the continuing adventures of Ivan Chonkin, a simple peasant who has been arrested as a traitor after spending World War II happily tending a garden. In this sequel to "The Extraordinary Life and Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin, " Vladimir Voinovich ridicules everything sacred to the Soviet Union--the army, the justice system, the press, and Stalin himself--in a refreshing combination of dissident conscience and universal humor.