Day of the Oprichnik

(Paperback)

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Description

Haunting, terrifying and hilarious, The Day of the Oprichnik is a dazzling novel and a fierce critique of life in the New Russia Moscow 2028- Andrei Danilovich Komiaga, oprichnik, member of the czar's inner circle of trusted courtiers, rouses himself from a drunken stupor and prepares for another day of debauchery, violence, terror and beauty. In this New Russia, futuristic technology combine with the draconian world of Ivan the Terrible to create a dystopia chillingly akin to reality. Over the twenty-four-hour span of the novel, Komiaga will rape, pillage and torture, in the name of the czar he fears and adores. Shimmering with invention, fierce social commentary and razor-sharp wit, Day of the Oprichnik imagines a near future too disturbing to contemplate and too close to reality to ignore.

Reviews

Vladimir Sorokin [is] Russia's most inventive contemporary author -- Masha Gessen * New York Times Book Review *
Vladimir Sorokin is one of Russia's greatest writers, and this novel is one of his best. Day of the Oprichnik is a haunting and terrifying vision of modern Russia projected two decades into the future - or maybe not the future at all. A joy to read - more entertaining, dynamic, engaging, and deeply hilarious than a dystopian novel has any right to be -- Gary Shteyngart * author of Absurdistan and Super Sad True Love Story *
Anyone who wants to learn more about Russia and what could be the outcome of [Vladimir] Putin's rule should read the book. It's dark and dystopian, but it's a part of our life -- Garry Kasparov * Time *
Compelling . . . Devastating . . . Powerful . . . In Day of the Oprichnik, [Sorokin] combines futurological invention with political archaism to vicious satirical effect . . . It's as if hi-tech limbs had been grafted onto the torso of early modern statecraft: Wolf Hall meets William Gibson -- Tony Wood * London Review of Books *

Author Bio

Vladimir Sorokin (born 1955) is the author of eleven novels, including The Blizzard, also published as a Penguin Modern Classic, The Ice Trilogy andThe Queue. His works have been translated into thirty languages and won many prizes, including the Andrei Bely Prize and the Maxim Gorky Prize. In 2013 he was a finalist for the Man Booker International Prize. He lives in Moscow.