The Galosh

The Galosh and Other Stories features 65 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).

Translated from the Russian by Jeremy Hicks

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.

“A very important book for anyone who loves Russian literature . . . This slender volume fills a huge gap in our understanding of Soviet life and art.” —Buffalo News