Cover of The Galosh

The Galosh

Sixty-five luminous satirical tales, from a writer who recorded, with unfailing style and wit, an era's troubles and a people's voice. (Los Angeles Times)

Read more

In his prime, satirist Mikhail Zoshchenko was more widely read in the Soviet Union than either Pasternak or Solzhenitsyn. His stories give expression to the experience of the ordinary Soviet citizen struggling to survive in the 1920s and '30s, beset by an acute housing shortage, ubiquitous theft and corruption, and the impenetrable new language of the Soviet state. Written in the semi-educated talk of the man or woman on the street, these stories enshrine one of the greatest achievements of the people of the Soviet Union-their gallows humor. In The Galosh, Zoshchenko, the self-described temporary substitute for the proletarian writer, combines wicked satire with an earthy empathy and a brilliance that places him squarely in the classic Russian comic tradition.

Translated from the Russian by Jeremy Hicks.

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 213 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked The Galosh? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked The Galosh. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. The Dragon: Fifteen Stories Shares russian, russian literature, short stories
  2. Sleepwalker in a Fog Shares russian, short stories, russian literature
  3. The Suitcase Shares russian, Russia, russian literature
  4. The Fierce and Beautiful World Shares russian, short stories, Russia

“People who read The Galosh tend to reach for these next.”

  1. The Noise of Time: Selected Prose
  2. Memories of the Future
  3. The Fiery Angel
  4. The Road: Stories, Journalism, and Essays

“If you want more of the same (satire), start with these.”

  1. Brief Loves That Live Forever
  2. The Letter Killers Club
  3. How a Muzhik Fed Two Officials
  4. Free onlineFree The Queen of Spades and Other Stories

“If it was the russian that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. A Family Chronicle
  2. Nervous People, and Other Satires
  3. Give Me: Songs for Lovers
  4. The Compromise

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Jonathan Wild
  2. The Adventures of Don Chipote; Or, When Parrots Breast-Feed
  3. Selected Diaries
  4. Lost Geography