A review by nagornaya
Four Russian Short Stories: Gazdanov & Others by Nina Berberova, Galina Kuznetsova, Bryan Karetnyk, Yury Felsen, Gaito Gazdanov

3.0

A short, eclectic collection of four stories by emigré Russian writers (all of whom were new to me). It's hard to rate this book because the stories were so varied - even though they were all on the same theme, death.

My favourite of the four was Gaito Gazdanov's 'Requiem', a short story about the profiteering Russian emigré community in 1940s Paris. I enjoyed the ways in which Gazdanov addressed the loss of identity that comes with the loss of homeland.

Yury Felsen's 'A Miracle', about a morphine addict in a French hospital, reminded me a lot of the earlier work of Mikhail Bulgakov - and that's always a good thing!