Between Dog & Wolf

This ';intricate and rewarding' novel by the renowned author ofA School for Foolsis ';a RussianFinnegan's Wake' finally available in English translation (Vanity Fair). One of contemporary Russia's greatest novelists, Sasha Sokolov is celebrated for his experimental, verbally playful prose. Written in 1980, his novelBetween Dog and Wolfhas long been considered impossible to translate because of its complex puns, rhymes, and neologisms. But in this acclaimed translation, Alexander Boguslawski has achieved ';a masterful featremarkably faithful to the subtleties of Sokolovs language' (Olga Matich, University of California, Berkeley). Alternating between the voices of an old, one-legged knife-sharpener, a game warden who writes poetry, and Sokolov himself, this language-driven novel unfolds a story of life on the upper Volga River, in which time, characters, and death all prove unstable. The one constant is the Russian landscape, where the Volga is a more-crossable River Styx, especially when it freezes in winter.