Nine of Russia's Foremost Women Writiers

With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of free speech (and publishing), Russian women have become a force in the world of letters. Whereas in the past they were known chiefly as literary widows or devoted wives, occasionally as poets or critics, and only very rarely as novelists, today they are beginning to dominate publishing lists in fiction and non-fiction alike. "NINE includes three internationally known names--Ludmila Petrushevskaya, Ludmila Ulitskaya, and Svetlana Alexiyevich--as well as half a dozen other respected women authors appearing here for the first time in English.
Who and what you will find in "NINE:
Ludmila Petrushevskaya's absurd middle-aged heroine (in "Waterloo Bridge") finds she has fallen in love with a character in a movie. Seeing the film again and again, she experiences the romantic love she never had in real life. "Petrushevskaya's genius consists in her ability to seize on the disparate details of everyday life and render them as a single perfect whole, in which even the most unpalatable reality is made beautiful